Oral Answers to Questions

SCOTLAND

The Secretary of State was asked—

Devolution

Anne McIntosh: What recent devolution issues the Advocate-General has considered.

Alistair Darling: Before answering that question, I should mention that I am a non-practising member of the Faculty of Advocates. As it is more than 18 years since I last practised, I am probably a bit rusty on the law.
	I understand that since 5 July—the last time that the hon. Lady asked this question—the Advocate-General has had 228 devolution issues intimated to her.

Anne McIntosh: I, too, am a non-practising member of the Faculty of Advocates, and I think that it is even longer since I last practised.
	It has been customary when the Advocate-General has answered questions in the House that she tells us a little about the cases on which she has been consulted. Perhaps the Secretary of State would care to elaborate on that. Perhaps he would like to tell us why the Advocate-General has not yet spoken as Advocate-General in the House of Lords. We, in this place, would find that of great interest.
	Because of our interest in the work of the Advocate-General, I am sure that—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady knows that supplementary questions should be short. If she will make her point in the next few seconds, I shall remain seated.

Anne McIntosh: What representations has the Advocate-General made on behalf of junior advocates at the bar about legal aid fees in Scotland?

Alistair Darling: I take it from what the hon. Lady said that she had no particular question to ask. Most of the cases are civil cases, and I think that the Advocate-General has written to the hon. Lady on that. If she wants to know the detail of the 228 cases—and this point applies to the whole House—it may be better for her to request that in writing, as it would take some considerable time to deal with them all at the Dispatch Box.
	When the Advocate-General speaks in the House of Lords is a matter outwith my control. The conventions and procedures there are different and most of us struggle to understand them fully.
	Legal aid is a matter for the Lord Advocate in Scotland. I know that there have been discussions north of the border, just as there have been south of the border, about how to make sure that legal aid is spent reasonably, while ensuring that people who are entitled to legal services get them.

Alistair Carmichael: I should first make it clear that I am not and never have been a member of the Faculty of Advocates—something of which I am immensely proud. I was only ever a humble solicitor.
	Will not the role of the Advocate-General become increasingly important if Labour Ministers such as Malcolm Chisholm in Edinburgh put themselves at loggerheads with Home Office Ministers on issues such as the disgraceful practice of carrying out dawn raids on the families of asylum seekers whose applications have been refused? Surely that makes it more important that there should be some mechanism by which we can directly question the Advocate-General, rather than the second-hand examples that we have seen today.

Alistair Darling: First, I do not think that I have ever met a humble solicitor. For the sake of completeness and accuracy, I should say that I was a solicitor for four years before joining the august body that is the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh.
	Responsibility for asylum rests with the Home Office and the hon. Gentleman, as a Member of the House, has ample opportunity to question Home Office Ministers at Question Time every month. I do not think that the fact that the Advocate-General is not in this House is a particular issue. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Scottish Executive and the Home Office are in discussions. Everyone wants to ensure that where it is necessary to remove people from this country, it is done in as humane a way as possible. We equally recognise that there are many cases that prove to be difficult. The Home Office and the Scottish Executive are working closely together and will continue to do so.

Business Rates

John Robertson: What discussions he has had with the First Minister about the level of business rates.

Alistair Darling: I have regular discussions with the First Minister, covering a range of issues. The Scottish Executive's announcement of an alignment of the business rate poundage with England over a period of two years is good news for Scottish businesses.

John Robertson: I thank my right hon. Friend for his response. I know that he will join with me in congratulating the Scottish Executive on its forward thinking. Let us hope that it will bring the right environment for growth in the economy.
	The next time my right hon. Friend talks to the First Minister, will he ask him about the business rates for Glasgow? Since the mechanism was introduced by the then Conservative Government—they took all the business rates for Scotland and put them into a pot—Glasgow has lost, in general terms, about a third of its own money. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that when there is even less money going back into the pot Glasgow gets its fair share for once?

Alistair Darling: I shall certainly endeavour to talk to the First Minister about that at some stage. I am told that Glasgow has received total Scottish Executive grants of more than £1.1 billion, which is something to be going on with. The whole issue of whether non-domestic rates incomes should be retained was considered by the Scottish Executive city review team in 2002. The Scottish Executive established a cities growth fund, which has allowed £172 million to be made available to councils. I suspect that whatever system is chosen will have some imperfections, but I would not want my hon. Friend to think that Glasgow was completely losing out. The sum of £1.1 billion is a sizeable contribution to the city and is doubtless very much needed. As we all know, Glasgow has made huge efforts in the past few years to transform itself, which is why it is now one of Britain's foremost cities for retail.

Eleanor Laing: The Secretary of State's colleagues in the Scottish Parliament have done a U-turn on business rates, which is a change for which Scottish Conservatives have been calling for five years. During that time, Scottish business has paid some £800 million more in taxation than it should have done. Will the Secretary of State apologise for what was clearly a mistake?

Alistair Darling: It was drawn to my attention the other day that a by-election was held in Dumfries—which used to be a Tory stronghold—in which the Tories got six votes. The hon. Lady's question perhaps illustrates why.
	The hon. Lady must know that Administrations adjust their policies from time to time, in this case to help business. The fact that a Labour-dominated Administration chose to reduce rates shows their commitment to helping Scottish business. I am also bound to say that I do not recall hearing anything from the Conservatives on the subject in the past five or six years, which shows what a hopelessly ineffective Opposition they are, north and south of the border.

Eleanor Laing: Absolute nonsense. We called for that reduction in business rates because we are the party of business and understand that it should have been done long ago. There is no doubt that Scottish business has suffered compared with business in the rest of the UK. The correct decision has at last been taken, but why will it not be introduced until 2007? If it is needed so urgently, should not it happen now? If the elections to the Scottish Parliament were next year instead of in 2007, would it be done next year? After all, it is clearly a political, not an economic, decision.

Alistair Darling: The hon. Lady just said that it was a necessary economic decision: she cannot have it both ways. The change is being phased in because it has to be paid for. I would have thought that the Conservative party, even in its present state, would accept that to spend money one needs to identify where the savings will be made, and that sometimes takes time.
	The Scottish economy is doing well—[Interruption.] Well, it is growing at above the trend rate of growth and we have the highest level of people in work that we have ever had. Contrast that to 20 years ago, under a Tory Government, when 3 million people were unemployed nationally and there were huge levels of unemployment in Scotland. The Scottish economy is completely different from what it was 20 years ago, and that is partly due to what the Scottish Executive are doing, although much of it has to do with the conduct of the economy by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We have seen sustained growth when other countries have had recessions—the difference is there for all to see. Scotland is doing well at the moment. We need to do better still, of course, but we are doing a lot better than we would ever have done had the Conservatives remained in office.

Michael Connarty: When my right hon. Friend discusses the consequences of the business rate setting with the First Minister, will he ensure that they take into account the result of the equal pay and single status agreement, which should have been implemented in 2002? More than 100,000 women are owed back pay to 2002, which could cost local authorities more than £1.5 billion. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that that money is available in the financial settlement for Scotland to enable that back pay to be paid, even if the business rates are equalised with England?

Alistair Darling: The Scottish Executive had their spending settlement agreed in the spending review last year, and that will not change. As the First Minister has made clear, both the Scottish Executive and local authorities have to live within their budgets, whatever happens in those discussions.

John Barrett: As the Scottish business rate poundage is now heading down to the English level, there is every prospect that the overall rates burden in Scotland will be lower than that in England. What steps will the Secretary of State take to promote Scotland's new competitive edge to potential inward investors from Europe and more widely, to ensure that the Scottish economy gains the maximum benefit from the bold step agreed by the Scottish Executive and announced by Nicol Stephen?

Alistair Darling: I think that this is a somewhat sterile debate, but it is certainly my recollection that although the hon. Gentleman's Liberal colleague north of the border may have muscled in on the matter, the decision was very much that of the First Minister, as we would expect.
	I welcome the hon. Gentleman, who is standing in for his colleague as Liberal spokesman—the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) has other business, and I quite understand that—and, as a fellow Edinburgh MP, he will know that there are many examples in Edinburgh, as well as other parts of Scotland, where firms have chosen to set up in business. Perhaps a striking example is the fact that the Royal Bank of Scotland, which is now the fifth or sixth biggest bank in the world, has chosen to locate its global headquarters in Edinburgh. It employs a substantial number of people, and it and other financial service providers in the city have done a great deal to advertise the merit of doing business in Scotland. That is why I told the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) a few moments ago that Scotland is doing an awful lot better today than in the past. Of course, we need to improve our productivity and so on, but the economic picture in Scotland is pretty good at present, and we will build on that with a stable economy, as well as with the other measures that will be taken by the Government here and the Scottish Executive at Holyrood.

Meteorological Office (Aberdeen)

Jo Swinson: What discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues about the proposed closure of the Aberdeen meteorological office.

David Cairns: My right hon. Friend and I keep in touch with colleagues in the Ministry of Defence on a range of issues, including the current consultation on the Met Office network.

Jo Swinson: Bearing in mind the unique nature of Scotland's weather, does the Minister feel that it is appropriate for Scotland to be left with no civil meteorological office? Is he happy that the Aberdeen meteorological office, which is a centre of excellence with great links to the marine and energy industries, may well close, with all forecasting being done 600 miles away in Exeter?

David Cairns: The hon. Lady pre-empts the ongoing consultation exercise—and no decision has been taken on that, as she well knows. Indeed, I think that she was present during the Adjournment debate in July, which was sponsored by the hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), when the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig), said very clearly that he was willing to consider any representation that might be made. Obviously, the option of keeping the Aberdeen office open as a centre of excellence is part of the current consultation, which is ongoing, and I shall certainly not pre-empt its result.

Anne Begg: Does my hon. Friend agree that the consultation has been full and proper, thanks to the work of the Under-Secretary of State for Defence? People in Aberdeen have been very active in that consultation. I understand that there will be a meeting this afternoon between management and the unions. I hope that that meeting and the consultation will result in maintaining the meteorological office—which is a centre of excellence—in Aberdeen.

David Cairns: I thank my hon. Friend for that question. It is true that discussions are taking place today between key stakeholders and officials in the Met Office. Those discussions are the direct result of a clear commitment that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary made in the House, namely, that if options were proposed he would consider them very carefully. Those at today's meeting will consider whether the talks can produce another definitive option, which may then result in the consultation period being extended. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) suggests, there has been a clear, open and transparent consultation, which is continuing.

Scottish Olympic Team

Pete Wishart: What discussions he has had with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on a Scottish Olympic team participating in the 2012 Olympics.

Alistair Darling: I have regular discussions with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on a wide range of issues.

Pete Wishart: I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Perhaps he should speak to the DCMS about the proposal, given that it is supported by 70 per cent. of the Scottish people.
	In the knowledge that I had tabled this question for today, I received what can only be described as a grossly insulting letter from British Olympic Association, which had the bare-faced cheek to suggest that a separate Scottish team would not do as well as individual Scots competing in Team GB. Will the Secretary of State dissociate himself from such nonsense? Given that there is no clear and set rule about why we cannot participate in the Olympics, will he wholeheartedly throw himself behind this campaign, which can only be good for Scottish sport?

Alistair Darling: Given the Scottish nationalists performance in recent Scottish elections, they can hardly claim to speak for the majority of people in Scotland. One reason why the nationalists are losing support is their blinkered and prejudiced outlook towards the rest of the United Kingdom. Most of us who are Scots take pride in those Scots in the Olympic team who do well, particularly those who join forces with team mates from other parts of Great Britain.
	I have seen the letter that was sent to the hon. Gentleman, and it made the point that Britain does well when it competes with the constituent parts of the country working together. It is interesting that when the Olympics were awarded to London, the nationalists said that it did not matter because it was in London. When the Scottish Executive put in a bid to get the Commonwealth games in Glasgow, Fergus Ewing from Inverness said that it did not matter because it would not take place in the highlands. Surely it is time to end such a blinkered, prejudiced outlook on life. [Interruption.]

Rosemary McKenna: More narrow-minded nationalist propaganda.
	Is my right hon. Friend aware that thousands of young Scots are excited about the prospect of representing the UK? Is he also aware that today the British Olympic committee announced the formation of a committee of the nations and regions under the chairmanship of Charles Allen, a Scot, to look into bringing the maximum benefits to Scotland and the rest of the UK?

Alistair Darling: I agree with my hon. Friend. The fact that the Olympics are coming to London in 2012 will be good for Scotland and for the whole of the United Kingdom. I am sure that many people look forward to aspiring to compete in the British team when the games take place. It is interesting that it is only from the narrow perspective of a particularly prejudiced and narrowly focused political party that we are getting criticism—[Interruption.] Just look at them, Mr. Speaker, they cannot control their bitterness; it is no wonder their support is plummeting.

Mark Pritchard: Does the Secretary of State agree that the strength of the British Olympic team over many, many generations has been the fact that it has been a Great British team made up of Englishmen and women, Welshmen and women, Scottish people, of all ages, and Northern Irish people? It is unfortunate that the Scottish nationalists want to undermine that great British tradition of working together to fly the Union flag rather than another flag over the podium.

Alistair Darling: Most people in Scotland and most people in this country will, I hope, rejoice in whatever successes the British team manages to obtain in the Olympics of 2012, but the point that the hon. Gentleman makes is a perfectly good one.

Eric Joyce: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best way Members can encourage enthusiasm for the Olympics and spread their benefits across Scotland is by getting down to the sports clubs across our constituencies and encouraging people to aim for the British team in the Olympics?

Alistair Darling: I think that that is the case and, coupled with the efforts of both the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Scottish Executive in Scotland, there is no reason why, in the next few years, we cannot encourage more people to take part and compete in sport, so that we can build up the strongest possible British team for 2012. It is a unique opportunity in our lifetime for people in this country, and I am quite sure that Scotland, together with other countries in the United Kingdom, will play its full part.

Eleanor Laing: Does the Secretary of State agree that it is sad that the SNP wants to bring politics into this area of sport and to poison the minds of people in Scotland—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Secretary of State is not responsible for the conduct of the SNP. In this Chamber, I am responsible for its conduct and also for that of the hon. Lady, so perhaps she could rephrase her question.

Eleanor Laing: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would not dream of insulting the Secretary of State by suggesting that he could possibly be responsible for such conduct.
	I seem to be strangely in agreement with the Secretary of State. Does he agree that this is a time to be positive as members of the United Kingdom, all working together, looking forward to terrific sporting success and to the great opportunity that the Olympics coming to London can bring—not just for the London area, but for the whole country and especially for Scotland, where we have had such wonderful success, from Eric Liddell onwards, in Scottish sport? Does he further agree that we must all work to bring the best of the Olympic tradition to Scotland to benefit young sportsmen and sportswomen in Scotland today?

Alistair Darling: Yes.

Act of Union

Mark Lazarowicz: Whether he has plans to mark the 300th anniversary of the Union of Parliaments.

David Cairns: Officials are liaising with other Departments and the Scottish Executive on appropriate ways to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Union of the Parliaments.

Mark Lazarowicz: I am glad to hear that, because the Act of Union with England and its counterpart marked not just the establishment of one Parliament, but the foundation of Great Britain. Although some Members may have different assessments of the success of that Union and of its future, surely no one would dispute its historical significance. It would be bizarre if we did not mark that and consider the historical significance and future of that Union in the same way that other states mark dates of such significance in their history. Will my hon. Friend consider how we can extensively recognise the successes and achievements of those 300 years and the challenges that face us in the future?

David Cairns: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. It is a significant historical event, whatever people's individual views of its merits, or otherwise. It is far too early to be able to put forward any definitive plans, but discussions are ongoing. As well as looking at the tremendous success of the UK over 300 years on the anniversary, I hope that we will be able to look to the future and Scotland's role in the Union in the 21st century—in a globalised economy with the threats of the fast-developing world—so that we can think about not only our historically tremendously successful country, but a confident nation that is looking forward to a confident future and the next 300 years of the Union.

David Mundell: Does the Minister agree that the celebrations of the Union of the Crowns in 2003 were somewhat disappointing and missed out on a lot of the tourist potential that could have arisen in constituencies such as mine? Will he ensure that the Act of Union is properly celebrated and that the politically correct brigade will not get their way and downgrade this important event?

David Cairns: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. It is of course important to learn the lessons of what happened on the anniversary of the Union of the Crowns. I am sure that the Act of Union, which was an important historical event, will be marked in an entirely appropriate way.

Alex Salmond: May I advise the Minister to do what his Department does best—nothing at all? Given that the Scotland Office did not lift a finger—not even a sausage roll—to commemorate this year's 700th anniversary of the death of Scotland's greatest hero, William Wallace, would the population at large not consider it passing strange if the Department started to plan a subsidised booze up and what would obviously be a political party for a parcel of rogues in 1707? Given that half the population does not agree with it and another half does not want to pay for it, will the Minister assure us that he will do what he does best—nothing at all?

David Cairns: I thought that the hon. Gentleman was going to suggest combining the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union with the 300th anniversary of the SNP winning a by-election—[Interruption.] I am informed that it is not actually that long; it just feels like it.
	If the hon. Gentleman wants to talk about the best political way of celebrating the event, which is in May 2007, it would be for the voters of Scotland to consign to the dustbin of history once and for all the narrow nationalism and separatism that would hold Scotland back, as opposed to the strength of the Union that has done Scotland tremendously well over 300 years.

Caledonian MacBrayne Ferries

Katy Clark: What representations he has made to the EU Commission on the tendering of Caledonian MacBrayne Ferries.

Alistair Darling: The Government see no legal basis to challenge the Commission's view that tendering is appropriate in this case. Scottish Executive Ministers have devolved responsibility for these subsidised services and are pursuing the arrangements to tender.

Katy Clark: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the proposed tendering makes no economic sense? Does he also agree that if tendering is to proceed, the contractual tendering documentation must be drafted in such a way that the existing work force will be protected and any new operator obliged to take on staff on their existing terms and conditions?

Alistair Darling: My hon. Friend will know that there has been a lot of discussion of the matter over many years. It is pretty clear that the law is that such services must be tendered, which the Scottish Executive accept. The tender documents and the terms and conditions are devolved matters, so they are entirely the responsibility of the Scottish Executive. I do not really want to start making decisions on matters that are properly theirs, not mine.

Angus MacNeil: On a matter that is not devolved, I would like to hear the right hon. Gentleman's view of tax avoidance in the run-up to the tendering, with specific reference to CalMac and offshore crewing. Does that tax avoidance bother him in any way?

Alistair Darling: Both the Scottish Executive and Caledonian MacBrayne must act entirely in accordance with the law.

Crime Prevention

Tom Clarke: What discussions he has had with the Scottish Executive on crime prevention, with particular reference to a strategy against drug misuse in Scotland.

David Cairns: My right hon. Friend and I have discussions with Scottish Executive Ministers on a wide range of issues, but as he knows crime prevention and tackling drug misuse are primarily devolved matters.

Tom Clarke: While I accept unreservedly my hon. Friend's reply, does he welcome the suggestion that, to tackle the problem of drugs coming into the United Kingdom, the Serious Organised Crime Agency for Scotland should be established in Gartcosh in my constituency? If that is true, can I depend on the full support of the Scotland Office and our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State?

David Cairns: I am aware of that suggestion. Should that campus be chosen, it will be due in no small measure to the way in which my right hon. Friend has argued the case of his constituency for the site of such a facility. As well as acknowledging that these are devolved matters, we should pay tribute to the tremendous work of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, which has brought to book hundreds of criminals involved in drug dealing. We are all aware of the scourge of drug dealing in our constituencies. These people should be subject to the full weight of the law, and if the proposal that my right hon. Friend mentioned helps to bring that about we would all support it.

CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

The Minister of State was asked—

Judicial Appointments Commission

Desmond Swayne: If she will make a statement on the judicial appointments commission.

Bridget Prentice: The judicial appointments commission will be launched on 3 April 2006 as part of a package of constitutional change. My right hon. Friend issued a written ministerial statement this morning announcing the appointment of Baroness Usha Prashar of Runnymede by Her Majesty the Queen as the first chair of the commission.

Desmond Swayne: Is the Lord Chancellor suitably chastened by the annual report in which he is criticised for intervening inappropriately to secure the selection of a candidate whom the panel deemed insufficiently qualified, and what is he going to do about it?

Bridget Prentice: My noble Friend the Lord Chancellor does not accept that view. In fact, he told the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs today that the commissioner's view was unfair and wrong and that it was "inappropriate" to put that person's name in the public domain.

Keith Vaz: My hon. Friend will know that the Lord Chancellor has made a number of important statements about the diversity of the judiciary, encouraging the appointment of more women and ethnic minorities. How will he ensure that those important vision statements will be taken on board by the new commission, bearing in mind that it is an independent body, and how will we ensure that the transition from the Lord Chancellor making the appointments to the new committee doing so is as smooth as possible?

Bridget Prentice: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that important question. We should not see merit and diversity as mutually exclusive, and we are assured that the commission will take both into account. People who were previously unrepresented in the judicial system are beginning to be appointed on merit and in greater numbers.

Judiciary (Women's Appointments)

Laura Moffatt: What progress is being made in the appointment of women to senior posts in the judiciary.

Bridget Prentice: The proportion of women sitting as judges in courts in England and Wales has risen from 10 per cent. in April 1998 to nearly 17 per cent. last month. This month, there has been a net increase of one in both the Court of Appeal and the High Court, but there is obviously much more to do.

Laura Moffatt: I thank my hon. Friend for her response. There is clearly steady progress and, as she has said, quality and diversity are the key to a judiciary we can all trust. Is she aware of the work that the professions are undertaking to ensure that women, in particular, are able to manage the difficult balancing act between family and advancing their career? The London Common Law and Commercial Bar Association, for example, is engineering a mentoring scheme by women, for women, to encourage them into the profession and to make sure that they stay there if they decide to have a family. Is she prepared to continue encouraging such schemes and to expand them for other professionals such as solicitors?

Bridget Prentice: I am very much aware of the scheme introduced by the London Common Law and Commercial Bar Association. We welcome it and encourage further mentoring programmes of that kind. Just last week I visited an award scheme run by the Law Society to help young people, particularly those with quite severe disabilities, who want to make law a career. I want to encourage others to do that.

Andrew Turner: The Minister mentioned merit and diversity. Will she assure the House that where merit can be measured objectively, the best person will always win?

Bridget Prentice: As I said in answer to a previous question, I do not think merit and diversity are mutually exclusive. We ought to appoint people on merit, we should appoint more people from a wide variety of backgrounds—more women and more people from ethnic and other minorities—and we should ensure that we have a judiciary and a legal system that properly reflect the society in which we live.

Judges' Statements

Tony Baldry: What recent discussions the Lord Chancellor has had with the Lord Chief Justice concerning judges making public statements on proposed law reforms.

Harriet Harman: The Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice frequently have discussions on a range of subjects.

Tony Baldry: Is the Minister worried that in his first public interview the Lord Chief Justice expressed concern that a politician—there is no mistaking who he was gunning for—should try to browbeat the judiciary? Will the Minister confirm that it is the constitutional right of any judge to express concern about new legislation—for example, the proposal to lock up people without charge for up to six months? Is it not sad that the Government's lasting legacy will be the Iraq war and repressive legislation?

Harriet Harman: I have had the opportunity to look at the full transcript of what the Lord Chief Justice said. It was a measured and informative contribution, which he made at his inaugural press conference. Out of some 20 questions from the press, about 17 were essentially the same question—whether he would have a huge row with the Government. Over and over again, the Lord Chief Justice said that he had his role to play and the Government and Parliament had their roles. That is what we will be getting on with.

Philip Hollobone: This week the Prime Minister said that the criminal justice system was too complicated and laborious—comments with which many residents in the Kettering constituency would agree. What proposals will the Minister introduce to speed up and simplify the criminal justice system?

Harriet Harman: We would all agree that the criminal justice system is too complicated and laborious. We are taking a range of measures in co-operation with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, and working with Victim Support and the witness service, to make sure that the criminal justice system is effective and provides a fair trial and a just outcome, but does not take too long going about it and does not become too bureaucratic.

David Heath: Does the right hon. and learned Lady agree that the retired Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, provided an inestimable service to the country by pointing out deficiencies in legislation? Does she agree with her noble Friend the Lord Chancellor in evidence that he gave this morning, as I understand it, to the Select Committee, that the Kilmuir rules are effectively no more and that members of the judiciary are entitled to make comment? Does she also agree that they have a duty to inform Parliament when the Executive introduce proposals that could be construed as unlawful—a role that ought to be played by the Attorney-General, but is not?

Harriet Harman: The way that the hon. Gentleman puts that is not right. I agree, of course, with his comments about the Lord Chief Justice. There is a great deal of practical working between the judiciary and the Government. For example, I quote the work of Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, who, when president of the family division, made many helpful contributions to the development of policy in relation to family proceedings, care proceedings involving children and domestic violence. Sir Igor Judge sits on the National Criminal Justice Board, together with criminal justice Ministers, the police and prosecutors. They work sensibly together. It is for the Government to propose legislation to the House, for the House to decide in its wisdom what to pass into legislation, and for judges, with the assistance of the Human Rights Act 1998 introduced by the Government, to make a decision on a case-by-case basis.

Jonathan Djanogly: With regard to judges' discretion, given that this week the Prime Minister complained that 50 per cent. of defendants get off, in what percentage of cases do the Government want not guilty verdicts?

Harriet Harman: We do not want a situation in which a defendant is charged and brought to court but the case cannot proceed because the victim has not turned up as a result of intimidation, or because a witness has not turned up because the case has been adjourned a couple of times. We need to reduce the number of so-called ineffective trials so that justice is done in every case—on behalf of the victim as well as the defendant. It is not about a particular percentage of cases. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees that in many cases the procedures let justice down and the outcome is a wrong one.

House of Lords Reform

Sadiq Khan: When the Department intends to proceed with the next steps towards establishing a reformed House of Lords.

Harriet Harman: We intend to continue with reform of the House of Lords to create an effective legitimate Chamber while maintaining the primacy of this House.

Sadiq Khan: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend. With the greatest respect, is she happy with the answer that was drafted by the civil servants? Can she let us know when we can expect a Joint Committee to be established and what its remit will be? Will she ensure that when the options from the Joint Committee come back to this House we are given options as to preference rather than a yes or no option? She will remember—some of us will not—what happened last time this House was asked to vote on the options.

Harriet Harman: The civil service gave me a very long and good answer to kick off the point raised by my hon. Friend, but I made it short to give him as much time as possible to ask his supplementary and so that I could deal with the issues that he raises.
	We want to get the Joint Committee established as soon as possible so that it can codify the key conventions of the House of Lords. My hon. Friend raises a very important point, of which he did not give me notice—although I am not criticising him for that—[Interruption.] I am saying that it was not a planted question. What he is asking is whether we will have sensible proceedings in this House when we have a free vote on the composition of the House of Lords, and how we will go about reaching that outcome. That is a very important point.
	We know where we got to in 2003. When we vote this time, we want to have absolute clarity. We want all Members to be absolutely clear that the choices that we are presenting to the House are those that they want to vote on, and we want to ensure that we vote on them in such a way as to achieve consensus. My hon. Friend pre-empts me in raising issues that I would like to explore—for example, whether we simply stick with a yes or no option or have a range of choices, which is sometimes called a preferendum. We must have a better process to ensure that the will of this House on the composition of the House of Lords is better expressed than we were collectively able to achieve in 2003, and I will certainly strive to achieve that.

Alan Beith: This morning, the Lord Chancellor laid out for the Select Committee a measured process whereby a Joint Committee would seek consensus on the functions of the second Chamber and then both Houses would have the opportunity to consider its composition in the light of that. Would not it be pre-empting that process for the Government to try to rush ahead in getting the House of Lords to introduce timetabling of Bills, or indeed remove the remaining hereditary peers, without taking all these things together?

Harriet Harman: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we have a manifesto commitment to limit to 60 days the time that the House of Lords will have to deal with a Bill. That is a free-standing manifesto commitment. We also have a free-standing manifesto commitment to abolish the remaining hereditaries. In addition to that, we said in our manifesto that we would establish a Joint Committee and have a free vote in this House. We will proceed on all those points; one is not conditional on the other.

Barristers (Strike Action)

Mark Harper: What steps she plans to take in response to strike action in respect of publicly funded work by barristers in criminal practice.

Bridget Prentice: It is irresponsible for barristers to take action that disrupts the courts and harms the interests of victims, witnesses and defendants. Action has been limited and managed locally by the courts, the Legal Services Commission and the Crown Prosecution Service using a range of effective contingency plans.

Mark Harper: Given the ample warnings from the Bar Council, does the Under-Secretary believe that it would have been advisable to wait until Lord Carter produced his report before introducing cuts to legal aid pay?

Bridget Prentice: The Lord Chancellor has been in conversation with the Bar Council, including two full months of consultation with the Bar, on the savings package. He also invited the Bar Council to offer alternative suggestions, without receiving any effective response. We could not wait any longer and I asked the Bar to continue to work with Lord Carter.

Stephen Hesford: On the back of my hon. Friend's comments, may I draw hon. Members' attention to early-day motion 745, which I tabled? Does my hon. Friend agree that it is deplorable when the Government are held to ransom—in effect, blackmailed—by the Bar? Is not it time that certain— not all—members of the Bar understood that a review process, which will consider the position in the round, is in progress, and that they should therefore reflect on the action that is currently being threatened? Should not especially members of the Bar Council Association decide to join in the review, which will report next year?

Bridget Prentice: My hon. Friend presents a measured and reasonable argument, to which I hope that the Bar will pay heed. Barristers are well paid. Junior barristers are paid, on average, £650 for a one-day trial and £1,300 for a three-day trial. Most people would find that a reasonable remuneration. I agree with him wholeheartedly that the Bar should work with Lord Carter, who will reach his conclusions by the end of January, so that we have a fair, sustainable and stable legal aid procurement system for the future.

Douglas Hogg: I declare an interest in that I am a practising barrister. Does the Under-Secretary understand that, although many of us do not support the strike, many members of the junior Bar are paid no more than £46 a day for going into court? Will she take account of their expenses? The fee is derisory and the matter should be addressed with all possible speed.

Bridget Prentice: The £46 fee is often mooted in favour of the junior Bar and is sometimes done so in a way that implies misunderstanding. The £46 could be for a bail application, which might take 10 minutes. A junior barrister could do 10 or 20 bail applications in a day at £46 each. I leave it to the mathematicians to work out exactly how much that is. Having said that, I stress to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that we are aware that aspects of the junior Bar's remuneration need to be examined. Today's action does not affect the very junior Bar; it is about trials that last 11 days and more, which few junior barristers experience.

Postal Voting

David Kidney: What further measures she proposes to put in place to prevent fraud in postal voting.

Harriet Harman: The Electoral Administration Bill includes several provisions to prevent fraud in postal voting.

David Kidney: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is important to reassure the public that voting by post is secure and reliable? Will she confirm that she will take care not to impose so many restrictions that the bureaucracy deters people from applying for a postal vote and voting by post?

Harriet Harman: We want to ensure that people have the choice of voting by post, which is an increasingly popular way of voting. However, we must also make it absolutely clear that security in postal voting is not an option. To achieve that, we need robust legal provisions—we shall improve them in the Electoral Administration Bill, which I shall bring before the House next week—and good support for the operational activity to deter and prevent fraud on the ground. We shall achieve both those things.

Jonathan Djanogly: The greatest level of security would come from individual voter registration, backed up by national insurance numbers. Why will the Government not countenance that?

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman is not right to say that we will not countenance it. In the Electoral Administration Bill, we are making provision to pilot the testing of individual identifiers and signatures. The right way to proceed is on an evidence base. We need to achieve three things to ensure the legitimacy of democracy. The first is that everyone should have access to a vote, which means everyone who is eligible being on the register. The second is that everyone should want to vote, which relates to high turnouts and to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) about postal voting. The third is that nobody should fiddle the vote. We need to focus on all three, and to have measures that will work across the board. That is what we shall be doing.

HOUSE OF COMMONS COMMISSION

The hon. Member for North Devon, representing the House of Commons Commission, was asked—

Cleaners' Pay and Conditions

David Taylor: What recent discussions the Commission has had on pay and conditions for cleaners employed in the House.

Nick Harvey: The issue of contract cleaners' pay was discussed by the Commission on 18 July and again yesterday evening. The Commission took note of the progress in the ongoing negotiations between the cleaners' employers and the Transport and General Workers Union. It also took note of the offer from the employing company, Mitie, of a pay increase to its staff from £5.20 to £6 per hour, funded through internal efficiency savings. The Commission also confirmed that it had no plans to increase the contract's value. Improved on-site accommodation for the contract staff has now been provided.

David Taylor: Even Thomas Gradgrind and Ebenezer Scrooge would balk at the Dickensian cleaning contracts in this place, which have driven wages down to poverty levels. Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the Commission has a role to play in settling this dispute? Will he ask the Serjeant at Arms to convene a tripartite forum of contractors, unions and House staff, with the aim of overcoming the impasse that is bedevilling progress in this unnecessary dispute?

Nick Harvey: The issue of pay and conditions is a matter for the employer and the work force. Let me make it crystal clear to the House that the authorities of the House have done, and are doing, what they can to help to resolve this issue. However, the Commission has authorised me to reaffirm that it will not increase the £2.2 million value of the contract. It cannot become directly involved in the negotiation of terms and conditions, which are a commercial and, ultimately, a legal matter between a contractor and its staff. The authorities of the House are, however, being kept informed of the progress in these negotiations, and will continue to do what they can to assist in achieving agreement as fast as possible.

John Bercow: May I put it to the hon. Gentleman that his answer to the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) is not entirely satisfactory? Some of us think that it is not really good enough for the House of Commons Commission to hide behind the cloak of a contractual negotiation between employer and employee. As one who signed the early-day motion tabled by the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Malik), may I put it to the representative of the Commission that it would do the Commission great credit if it were to intervene in such a way as to offer hope to the people who toil incredibly hard in this House for a pathetically insignificant reward?

Nick Harvey: The House of Commons lets contracts for a wide variety of services within the organisation. It would be highly unusual if, halfway through one such contract, we were to renegotiate its value, and it would become impossibly difficult for the House to hold the value of any other contract on a wider front if we showed a willingness so to do. I reaffirm that the House authorities have worked with the employer to help it to find substantial savings within the contract. Parts of the building will be cleaned less frequently than before, and some will be cleaned during the day rather than in the evening. When we let this contract, however, it was not given to the lowest bidder. All bidders gave indicative pay rates, which we insisted had to be set at a level that would minimise staff turnover. Indeed, staff turnover on this contract is much lower than the industry average, indicating a degree of satisfaction on the part of the work force.

David Winnick: Is not the crux of the matter that the people about whom we are talking are not being paid as much as those directly employed by the House of Commons? Why should there be such a difference? Does not the Commission have a responsibility to ensure that all those who do such essential work are paid decent wages, which is not what has happened so far? The people who have been employed by the contractors have been treated disgracefully, and it is about time that the House of Commons put the whole matter right.

Nick Harvey: The wages and conditions on these contracts are comparable with equivalent contracts in the area and with the market rate. The pay of in-House cleaners reflects two points: first, that they work in sensitive areas, where it was felt that the service should not be contracted out; and secondly, that they are paid within a pay system that covers the majority of the House's employees. Therefore, internal relativities as well as market factors have had to be considered when settling the level of pay for in-House cleaners.

LEADER OF THE HOUSE

The Leader of the House was asked—

Private Members' Bills

Hugh Bayley: If he will invite the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House to examine the case for providing more time for private Members' Bills to be considered on the Floor of the House.

Geoff Hoon: The new Modernisation Committee was established on 13 July, and has since met twice. It is currently discussing a programme of work, and is happy to receive representations on that from all colleagues. Currently, I have no plans to propose changes to the time available for consideration of private Member's Bills.

Hugh Bayley: Over the years, private Member's legislation has established some important rights and, sometimes, duties, for citizens of this country. I have been a Member of the House for more than 13 years, and apart from a short time when I inhabited the Front Bench, I have dutifully entered the ballot every year to try to get selected to put forward a Bill, but have never been successful even in securing the last place. The House would benefit if more time were available for private Member's legislation. Will my right hon. Friend ask the Committee to consider whether Wednesday evenings, on which we no longer sit, could be used to discuss private Member's Bills?

Geoff Hoon: I sympathise with my hon. Friend's difficulties with the ballot. I have the same problem with the lottery every Saturday evening. His practical suggestion of finding extra time was considered by the previous Modernisation Committee, which examined the idea of moving private Member's Bills to Tuesday evenings rather than Wednesday evenings, although the principle remains the same. It concluded that such a move would
	"fundamentally change the character of the proceedings, with the intrusion of whipping into time which has so far been at the free disposal of backbenchers".
	Obviously, the House has since come to a different conclusion as to the pattern of hours of business. Given the history of the issue, I do not propose to disturb those arrangements for the moment, as I do not want to plunge the House into a further debate on our hours of work.

Sub Judice Rule

Sally Keeble: If he will bring forward proposals to implement the Procedure Committee's recommendations on the sub judice rule.

Nigel Griffiths: The Procedure Committee published its report on the House's sub judice rule in April this year. The conclusions and recommendations are largely matters for you, Mr. Speaker, and the House authorities to consider in the first instance. We are, of course, ready to respond to any points that come out of that process. That applies particularly to the recommendations concerning the application of the rule to coroners' courts, which I know are of concern to my hon. Friend, who gave both written and oral evidence to the Committee during its inquiry.

Sally Keeble: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply. Does he have any comment in particular about the recommendation that when an inquest is adjourned for a long time, there should be some consideration of what happens to the sub judice rule? He will be aware that 18 months have elapsed since the adjournment of an inquest that affects a matter of great public concern, not just to my constituency but more widely. It is wrong that we should be completely unable to ask questions or to call the Government to account on the matter during that period.

Nigel Griffiths: Of course I am not indifferent to the mental anguish experienced by my hon. Friend's constituents; but while coroners' courts do not determine the guilt or innocence of individuals, their findings can be very important and serious, and are obviously important to the discharging of our obligations under the European convention on human rights. Their proceedings risk being prejudiced through statements in the House. The Attorney-General said in evidence to the Procedure Committee that there might be a case for some relaxation in relation to the timing.

Nicholas Winterton: The hon. Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) gave excellent evidence to the Procedure Committee. I suggest that Members read the Committee's report on the sub judice rule.
	The Speaker who presides over our affairs in the House has an important role. He can often make it easier for Members to ask the questions when there is a danger that, without advice, the sub judice rule would be breached. I respect the Speaker's role very much. He can be very helpful to Members in such circumstances.

Nigel Griffiths: I was grateful for the opportunity to serve on the Procedure Committee under the distinguished chairmanship of the hon. Gentleman, and I am grateful to him for telling my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) something that you know already, Mr. Speaker, but that other Members will have wanted to know.

David Heath: I agree that the Procedure Committee's report is extremely good, and rightly recognises your discretion, Mr. Speaker, to give advice on the sub judice rule. There is an issue relating to coroners' courts, however. May I ask the Leader of the House, through his right hon. Friend the Deputy Leader, to make it clear to Cabinet Ministers in particular that sub judice rules apply to them as well, and that they are much more likely to prejudice the outcome of a court case than any Member raising an issue on the Floor of the House?

Nigel Griffiths: I am sure that Ministers are well aware of their obligations. I do not think that there have been too many examples of breaches of that kind.

Speaker's Statement

Mr. Speaker: I have a statement to make to the House.
	Following yesterday's personal statement by the right hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mr. Byers), I received from the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) a complaint of breach of privilege relating to the evidence given by the right hon. Gentleman to a sub-committee of the Select Committee on Transport, Local Government and the Regions on 14 November 2001.
	My only role in this matter is to decide whether or not to allow the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell to have precedence over the Orders of the Day to move a motion relating to his complaint. It is not for me to make any judgment on the merits of the matter. I have concluded that the question is one which should be submitted to the decision of the House; and accordingly the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell will be able to move a motion relating to his complaint at the commencement of business tomorrow.

BILL PRESENTED

Work and Families

Mr. Secretary Johnson, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Secretary Prescott, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Secretary Blunkett, Mr. Secretary Darling, Secretary Patricia Hewitt, Secretary Tessa Jowell, Mr. Secretary Hain and Secretary Ruth Kelly, presented a Bill to make provision about statutory rights to leave and pay in connection with the birth or adoption of children; to amend section 80F of the Employment Rights Act 1996; to make provision about workers' entitlement to annual leave; to provide for the increase in the sums specified in section 186(1) and 227(1) of that Act; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed [Bill 60].

Age of Sale of Tobacco

Jeff Ennis: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to raise the minimum age of sale of tobacco and tobacco products from 16 years to 18 years.
	I am delighted to have an opportunity to present this Bill. I believe that it is an extremely important measure, which the Government should implement if we are serious about reducing smoking in this country, particularly among younger people. The stimulus for the Bill came in 2004, when the Government published their White Paper "Choosing health: making healthier choices easier". The White Paper contained a chapter dedicated to the reduction of smoking through a number of different initiatives, none of which included raising the age at which people could buy tobacco. I found that something of a mystery at the time, especially in the light of the BBC's 2004 Healthier Britain survey, which revealed that 80 per cent. of the public—particularly those aged between 18 and 24—supported such a move.
	Since then, I tabled two early-day motions during the last two parliamentary Sessions proposing such a measure. My early-day motion 226, which I tabled in May, has already attracted well over 50 signatures in this Session from Members in all parts of the House. It states that this House calls on the Government to give serious consideration to raising the minimum age of sales of tobacco from 16 to 18 years to bring it in line with sales of alcohol. I urge all Members who have not already signed it to do so.
	My main reason for introducing this Bill—other than its obvious beneficial impact in terms of preventing youngsters from smoking—is that in the past couple of years the Government have made great strides in the age-barring of many other products. For example, under the terms of the Gambling Act 2005, the use of many gaming machines will be restricted to over-18-year-old players. Through the Violent Crime Reduction Bill, the Government intend to raise to 18 the age of sale of airguns and dangerous knives. Such measures doubtless enjoy popular support, so it is common sense to implement a similar measure in respect of tobacco. Doing so would show unequivocally that this Government do not condone young people smoking to the same extent that they do not condone young people drinking.
	My Bill would not be a world first. A number of European countries—including Sweden, Ireland, Finland, Iceland, Malta, Norway and Poland—have already introduced such a measure. North of the border, Scotland is considering implementing such a measure through the Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Act 2005, thanks to the tabling of an amendment by my Scottish Labour parliamentary colleague, Mr. Duncan McNeil, the MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde. So in effect, we would be following in the footsteps of some of our enlightened European colleagues.
	Of course, my Bill would not totally stop young people smoking, but it would impact on the number who become smokers in their teenage years, which is when some 80 per cent. of smokers begin smoking. The best example of the impact of such a measure can be seen on the island of Guernsey, where the age of sale was raised to 18 as long ago as 1997. Before then, the number of young smokers in Guernsey was roughly the same, as a percentage, as in the rest of the UK. But by 2003, thanks primarily to that measure and to the setting up of an appropriately named organisation, GASP—the Guernsey Adolescent Smoke-free Project—the number of young people reporting that they smoked had reduced by half. Now, nearly twice as many youngsters smoke in the UK as smoke in Guernsey, and when questioned, only 3 per cent. of Guernsey's 11-year-olds said that they thought they would smoke when they were older. Guernsey is now credited as being the world leader in reducing smoking among young people.
	So there is clear evidence that raising the age of sale can reduce the number of youngsters who smoke, and I am delighted to say that my Bill enjoys the support of a number of different organisations and agencies, such as the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation and the Trading Standards Institute, to name but two. Having spoken to Mike Unger, the chief executive of the foundation, I know that he is very supportive of my Bill. The foundation is currently funding a 12-year study into children's attitudes to smoking and it has just published the primary results. I am sure that the Government will want to look at its findings in great detail.
	The TSI, which is responsible for enforcing the laws relating to age-restricted sales—including sales of tobacco—across England and the rest of the UK, also strongly supports my Bill. In 2004–05, trading standards services prosecuted some 117 retailers for selling cigarettes to children aged under 16. The retailers received penalties ranging from a conditional discharge to fines of up to £1,000; many more received cautions.
	After its annual conference in June this year, the Trading Standards Institute, in a press release entitled "Call to raise age limit on cigarettes to 18", said:
	"The age limit on cigarette sales should be raised to 18, bringing tobacco into line with other age-barred products that have a detrimental effect on public health . . . Doing so might help deter children from becoming regular smokers, while also aiding retailers who claim it is difficult for them to determine the age of children who ask to buy cigarettes."
	The call for action is also backed by the local authorities' co-ordinators of regulatory services. Stephen Butterworth, the TSI's lead officer on health, said:
	"TSI supports the thrust of last year's Government White Paper "Choosing Health", which aims to improve public health by encouraging healthier choices. With that in mind, we do not believe the Government is right to leave it to 16-year-olds to make the potentially life-threatening choice of smoking or not."
	Mr. Brandon Cook, TSI joint lead on age-restricted sales, added:
	"We believe that raising the age limit to 18, combined with stronger penalties against shopkeepers who repeatedly make underage sales, would make it more difficult for young people to regularly get their hands on cigarettes."
	The TSI has previously requested raising the age to 18 without success and it is TSI policy to continue to press for action on the issue.
	It is also my intention to continue to press the Government on this issue. The current age restriction on tobacco dates back to the beginning of the last century—well before scientific evidence was available to demonstrate the real health impact of smoking. Knowing what we do today about the dangers, it is our duty to do all that we can to prevent young people from smoking. This Bill is a common-sense measure which I hope the Government will have the common sense to implement.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Jeff Ennis, Mr. David Chaytor, Mr. David Drew, Mrs. Betty Williams, Harry Cohen, Mr. Terry Rooney, Mr. Stephen Crabbe, Mr. David Crausby, Chris McCafferty, Mr. Jeffrey M. Donaldson and Mr. Mike Hancock.

Age of Sale of Tobacco

Jeff Ennis accordingly presented a Bill to raise the minimum age of sale of tobacco and tobacco products from 16 years to 18 years: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 11 November, and to be printed [Bill 59].

Identity Cards Bill (Programme) (No. 3)

Tony McNulty: I beg to move,
	That the Order of 28th June 2005 (Identity Cards Bill (Programme)) be further varied as follows:
	For paragraph 4 substitute—
	"4.   Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at this day's sitting at the time specified in the second column of the following Table.
	
		TABLE
		
			  
			 Proceedings Time for conclusion ofproceedings 
			 New clauses and amendments relating to Clause 1 5.45 p.m. 
			 Amendments relating to Clauses 2 to 7 7.15 p.m. 
			 Remaining proceedings on consideration One hour before the moment of interruption." 
		
	
	First, may I say that the motion is intended to assist the House in using our available time this afternoon on Report to the very best possible effect? We have made good progress on the Bill thus far. There have been seven days and 11 sittings in Committee, starting on 5 July and finishing on 21 July. We had a timetable motion in Committee in order to ensure good progress, and as a result of the knives, only clauses 12 and 13 and parts of clause 5 failed to be discussed—some seven groups of amendments in all. We certainly debated far more than seven groups of amendments in Committee.
	Although I should point out that there was plenty of time to raise issues, I am told that we spent, in total, some 26 hours and six minutes in all. We were even offered the possibility of a final sitting on the afternoon of 21 July, but in the event it was not needed or required by Opposition parties. We thus had more than sufficient time.
	Because of the need to make the best use of available time, we propose to divide today's timetable with knives at 5.45 and 7.15 to ensure that all parts of the Bill are properly scrutinised.
	I readily recognise that there are important and serious matters for us to discuss, but we need to parcel up the business in this way to allow for Third Reading at 9 pm as normal. If hon. Members want to debate the Bill, they should accept the motion and let us get on with that debate. The House will surely agree that it would be better for us to spend time this afternoon debating the Bill and the substantial matters before us rather than taking time to debate at length whether or not to timetable the debate. With that in mind, our motion will help order our debate sensibly.

Nick Gibb: Is the Minister programming the discussion on the Bill because he personally as a Minister believes that the advantages of the Bill are overstated?

Tony McNulty: I shall take that as a question specific to the programme motion, which of course it was. The matters before us are very important. There are three distinct categories, all of which need discussion. If the hon. Gentleman resists the urge to vote against the motion, my views will come out in due course.

Edward Garnier: I am used now to the Minister, either from that Dispatch Box or in Committee, demanding less time for this important Bill to be discussed and, lo and behold, here he comes again with the same request. Of course, it is not a request but a demand; a demand that this House will no doubt need to consider carefully. I hope that, in due course, we will test the opinion of the House. Whatever blandishments are put forward by the Minister, I urge the House to reject the motion yet again to curtail debate.
	This is not some statutory instrument or anodyne piece of business. This is one of the most important Bills that we will discuss during this Session. The Bill utterly alters the status of the state and its relationship with the individual. Yet as we predicted in Committee, the Government are curtailing debate. We have about seven or eight different areas of discussion to deal with this afternoon, and the Government seem wholly incapable of producing the necessary arguments to justify this curtailment of discussion.
	I shall not detain the House this afternoon by dignifying the Minister's remarks with a lengthy response, which would be to fall into the trap that he has so candidly placed before us. However, the Bill contains approximately 60 powers to be given to the Home Secretary, who is no longer in his place, to make secondary legislation. It is a radically dangerous way to legislate and it is even worse that the Government are curtailing our ability to discuss it. I urge all hon. Members with any understanding of the word "democracy", or of the expression "Let us scrutinise this legislation", to vote against the programme motion, which is unnecessary and wholly ridiculous.

Alistair Carmichael: As the Minister said, the sessions in Committee were good, but they were exactly that: Committee sessions. Today, we have an opportunity for the whole House to have a say and it is important that we allow adequate time for a full discussion of all the issues that arise from this extensive Bill. Frankly, my fear is that although we have been careful in seeking to retain a tight focus in respect of the amendments tabled by myself and my hon. Friends—as, indeed, have the Conservatives—the operation of the knives will be such that we will not be allowed to have a full discussion of all the matters of importance that ought to be scrutinised by this place. Accordingly, should a Division be called, my right hon. and hon. Friends and I will not support the Government.

Douglas Hogg: I rise to support the observations of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier). The Minister in his opening remarks said that the motion was for the assistance of the House so as to make best use of the time available to us. The time available to us is the amount of time provided by the Government. If they truly wanted to assist the House, they would have given us a great deal more time, especially as the Bill will not come into early effect. The reality is that there is ample time for proper consideration.
	My hon. and learned Friend sketched out the principal arguments against timetable motions of this kind, and I shall add one or two further comments. First, we must never forget that the Report stage is the only opportunity for Members of this House who were not members of the Standing Committee to scrutinise the detail of a Bill. On this occasion, they will be allowed no more than five hours for that detailed scrutiny. In my view, that is wrong in principle.
	My second point which is rather different, although the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) alluded to it when he spoke about retaining a tight focus when framing his amendments, is that hon. Members faced with tight guillotines often do not table the amendments that they would table if more time were available. As a consequence, Bills are not being scrutinised properly. The grossest example of a Bill that was not properly scrutinised is the one that became the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which has been criticised time and again, in the Court of Appeal and elsewhere, for its inadequate construction and the poor scrutiny that it received here. The same thing is happening again.
	I hope that the House will never allow a timetable motion to go through without a protest and a vote. The Government say that that will circumscribe debate. Although true, that is unworthy of this House—but typical of this Government.

Richard Shepherd: I, too, rise to support what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) said from the Front Bench, and the comments that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) has just made. My distinguished colleague was right to say that the time available is the amount of time that the Government set.
	The Government expect their supporters to march into the appropriate Lobby to support the proposition that it is fair to devote an hour and three quarters to the Bill's central contention, which is that a national identity register should be set up. This is a profoundly important piece of legislation, yet the Government say that the time allotted will be sufficient for scrutiny by Back-Bench Members from every party who could not attend the Standing Committee, or who were not put on it in the first place.
	The Bill was in Committee for only seven days, and the Minister made much of the fact that it received 26 hours and six minutes of consideration. In any Parliament before 1997, that would have been laughable. This Bill affects every citizen of this country. With the fines that it can impose and its proposals for a national identity register, it reaches into every particular of identity, yet it is not being discussed in the traditional manner on the Floor of the House of Commons.

John Bercow: Does my hon. Friend agree that the motion represents a travesty of parliamentary scrutiny, given the mass electorate that will be affected by the Bill? Is not that underlined by the fact that each amendment in the first two groups, although they relate to the very essence of the Bill, will receive only eight minutes of consideration—and that is on the rather unlikely assumption that there are no votes? Is not that an absolute disgrace?

Richard Shepherd: I could not agree more. The essence of the argument is that at the heart of the Bill is a change in the relationship between an individual's identity and the Government. Outside wartime emergency regulations, that represents a complete change in our relationship with the state. The Government think that a total of 26 hours and six minutes in Committee discharges their responsibility to this House and to the people whom we represent.
	This Bill is important, but we face yet another guillotine. It has been said that the Government rule by guillotine, not by winning arguments in debate. That is why the House should reject the motion.

William Cash: I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) and my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) for pointing out a number of vital matters. I heard one of the Ministers refer to the Leader of the Opposition in the context of the Bill. He will know that I have had the gravest doubts about the way in which the Bill was presented on Second Reading. When the matter was decided in 1995, it was pursued on a voluntary basis.
	I heard the Minister this morning on the "Today" programme refer to an enabling Bill. The enabling process changes the nature of the operation completely and will not allow proper debate. As the Minister well knows, the reality is that in the context of what the Information Commissioner said, this is about state surveillance. That is why I presented George Orwell's book "1984" to the Home Secretary who, to his disgrace, is not here this afternoon.
	With great respect to you, Mr. Speaker, Standing Orders have been taken over by the Executive, and that has led to the situation today. They should be returned to you. This is the constitutional question that we face. Matters related to guillotines and programme motions should be decided not by the majority in the House but by indisputably distinguished and independent parties—in particular yourself, Mr. Speaker. It is a disgrace to hear Ministers from the Home Office suggest otherwise.

William McCrea: The legislation before the House is important because it affects every citizen across the United Kingdom, so it is important that we discharge our duty as parliamentarians fully to discuss the Bill. That is why I and my colleagues reject any question of a guillotine, and if there is a vote we will certainly oppose the Government.

Question put:—
	The House divided: Ayes 322, Noes 257.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Ann Winterton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would you look into the fact that on two occasions since we returned to the House what is known as the chauffeurs' entrance has been closed during a Division? I understand that responsibility has passed from the police to the security services in the House, and I wonder whether you could ensure that in future when the Division bell rings entrances are open so that Members of Parliament can come to vote as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker: I thank the hon. Lady for raising that matter. I instruct the Serjeant at Arms to look into it.

Orders of the Day
	 — 
	Identity Cards Bill

As amended in the Standing Committee, considered.

David Heath: I beg to move, That the Bill be recommitted to a Select Committee.
	Members hold many serious reservations about the Bill, and even more reservations are held by people outside the House. That is not reason in itself to recommit to a Select Committee; indeed, there is opportunity under the normal Committee and Report process for us to consider the principled reasons, but the Bill, almost more than any other, depends on the practicalities. If it does not work, if it costs vastly more than the Government say it will cost and if conclusions can be drawn about the scope of the information stored on identity cards, the enabling Bill—on repeated occasions, the Minister has stressed that it is enabling legislation—has completely different connotations and the House ought seriously to consider them.
	I accept that the Standing Committee process is, in many ways, a good means of examining the detail of a Bill—line by line—but it is difficult for a Standing Committee to perform the same role in respect of this enabling Bill. The process is thus imperfect and does not allow hon. Members to consider matters in depth.
	The Committee that considered the Bill certainly did not have the opportunity to examine issues in detail, many of which the Government raised following the conclusion of the 11th sitting on 21 July. Indeed, the Home Affairs Committee undertook an in-depth examination, but that—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. There are far too many private conversations in the Chamber, which is unfair to the House.

David Heath: I am grateful, Mr. Speaker.
	The Home Affairs Committee reported on 20 July 2004—more than a year before the end of the Standing Committee process. The House has thus not had the benefit of the inquisitorial method of working that Select Committees use.
	Three matters of principal concern have arisen since the end of the Standing Committee, the first of which is costs. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have repeatedly raised the question of costs throughout the passage of the Bill because it is critical to our understanding of what the national identity card system will mean. Some of us believe that the large investment that the Government propose would be better spent on other forms of detecting and preventing crime, but that is an aside. We need to know the Government's intentions, which were made clear only in the past few days through what the press described as a string of concessions to critics in an effort to avert a rebellion. I do not know whether a rebellion will be averted, but I do know that the House is entitled critically to examine the Government's costings. We must be assured that the costings are robust and capable of being realised. We especially need to examine the Minister's proposed arrangements to recoup funds from other Departments, which will be critical to the working of the scheme.
	Secondly, we must consider something that is rather inelegantly called function creep. The Minister has been somewhat undermined by his colleagues in the Cabinet Office, because the Government's chief information officer's draft information technology strategy has been leaked over the past few days. On identity cards, it is important to note that the document reveals:
	"Identity management is a subject whose time has now arrived."
	It says that the Government are leading the debate on identity cards and will be using it as part of a
	"suite of identity management solutions"
	to enable public and private sectors to provide cost-effective electronic services. The document also says that data sharing will increase under new proposals.
	Those are legitimate matters of concern for many hon. Members, so we want to find out what the Cabinet Office proposes and whether the Home Office agrees.
	Thirdly, the efficacy of the proposals—their ability to do what they say they will do—is a matter of huge concern among many hon. Members. In the past few days—after the Standing Committee concluded—we found out the results of tests on the card system. The system works perfectly well—unless a person is disabled, has dark skin, has brown eyes, is bald, or is wrinkled. If someone makes the mistake of being bald and wrinkled, the system tells them that their head is upside down. If a person is a labourer, typist, or pianist, the system does not work. The system does not work if a person undertakes a voluntary change of appearance, which rules out every teenager in the country. If people make the mistake of ageing, identity card technology is not for them. In fact, it has been revealed that one in 1,000 cases result in a misidentification. As 13.5 million people a month go through British airports, there will be 13,500 misidentifications every month, which will do wonders for the queues at security checks.
	The Minister's response is that multiple identifiers will cure that problem, but I draw the House's attention to the front page of today's edition of The Scotsman. It says that ID cards equal more fraud and quotes at length Mr. Jerry Fishenden, the national technology officer for Microsoft—a company one would expect to know something about the subject—who says that the identity card scheme as envisaged will result in "massive identity fraud" on a scale as yet unseen. On balance, I prefer the evidence of the Microsoft bosses to that of the Minister, but it is for a Select Committee to look in detail at the proposals. It could call Mr. Fishenden to give evidence.

David Winnick: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Heath: I do not think I would be in order if I accepted an intervention, as I am giving a statement of the reasons for recommittal.
	It is essential that, before the Bill leaves the House today, a Special Select Committee should have the opportunity to take evidence, examine witnesses and give the House the benefit of reasoned advice on this subject. I shall close with a quote from the Minister of State, who will tell me in a moment that he agrees with the recommittal motion and that this is a matter that should go before a Select Committee. He said that
	"the arguments . . . have shifted away from civil liberties to practicalities and costs, and those are the issues we must address".
	The Government must address those issues, but so must the House if it is to do its job properly. It cannot do so within the confines of Report and Third Reading as envisaged in the programme motion. The Bill must return to Committee if the House is not to divest itself of its responsibilities and leave it yet again to another place to do the job that we should be doing as the primary Chamber.

Tony McNulty: I fully intend to give the motion the short shrift that it deserves. The matters of substance about which the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) spoke will be dealt with, not just by the House in our remaining time today but by the other place. As the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) will agree, we look at things 61 times whenever matters of substance and detail come back to the House. As I have repeatedly said, this is enabling legislation.
	As for the history of the proposal, the simple fact is that the Bill and the policy underlying it have probably received more consultation and scrutiny than most legislation. That started in 2002 with an initial six-month public consultation on the entitlement cards and identity fraud consultation paper. An inquiry by the Home Affairs Committee began in 2003 following publication of the Government's policy statement on the introduction of identity cards in "Identity Cards—The Next Steps" in November 2003. The draft Identity Cards Bill was published in April 2004.

David Winnick: Will the Minister give way?

Tony McNulty: I am not permitted to do so, for the reasons already given by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome.
	The draft Bill was published in April 2004, and the Select Committee went on to undertake formal pre-legislative scrutiny of it, publishing its report in October 2004. We then introduced the first Identity Cards Bill in November 2004, and its Committee stage consisted of eight sittings totalling 24 hours. I know that that will not please the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), but it is a normal time scale. That Bill was passed by the House in February 2005 but ran out of time in the House of Lords because of the May election. Prior to the election, there were two full Select Committee inquiries and full determination by a Standing Committee of the House. To suggest that the Bill has not been subjected to due scrutiny is nonsense.
	The Bill has come back before us after due process in a Committee for 11 sittings over seven days, a total of 26 hours and six minutes. That six minutes may include the time that there were two Liberals present in Committee. For the substantive part of the debate, there were not two Liberals present, for whatever reason, yet they have the cheek to propose to the House that the Bill be recommitted to a Select Committee. For 90 per cent. of the time they could not be bothered to have their full complement at the Standing Committee. That is outrageous.
	The Bill is very similar to the one passed in February. Because it is an enabling Bill, as I said, much more detailed work will be undertaken by the House in the usual way before the cards are introduced in 2008. It is right to put the legislation in place now so that we can start to put in hand the detailed arrangements for procurement and for building the scheme, and to establish a new agency based on UK Passport Service to be responsible for issuing ID cards. All those matters of detail will have been discussed by the House on 61 occasions, which is right and proper, given that it is enabling legislation. I am sure the House will agree that we would spend our time far better this afternoon debating the substance of the Bill, rather than a silly little motion from the Liberal Democrats.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 74 (Re-committal of Bill):—
	The House divided: Ayes 243, Noes 326.

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 1
	 — 
	The National Identity Register

Patrick Mercer: I beg to move amendment No. 8, in page 1, line 10, after 'others', insert 'who reasonably require proof'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
	No. 9, in page 1, line 16, leave out from beginning to end of line 6 on page 2 and insert—
	'(a)   of assistance to the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting terrorist acts in the United Kingdom or elsewhere or otherwise in the interests of national security;
	(b)   of assistance to the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting serious crime;
	(c)   for the purposes of controlling illegal immigration and enforcing immigration controls; or
	(d)   for the purpose of securing proper provision of relevant public services.
	(4A)   For the purposes of subsection(4)—
	"relevant public services" means the provision of—
	(a)   healthcare,
	(b)   housing,
	(c)   education, and
	(d)   social benefits;
	"serious crime" means crime giving rise to an offence triable only on indictment.'.
	No. 6, in page 1, line 16, leave out paragraph (a).
	No. 10, in page 2, line 1, leave out 'prevention or'.
	No. 24, in page 2, line 1, after second 'of', insert 'serious'.
	No. 15, in, clause 8, page 7, line 10, leave out 'and'.
	Government amendment No. 2
	No. 16, in clause 8, page 7, line 12, at end insert
	'and
	(c)   is issued for the following purposes only—
	(i)   to assist in preventing or detecting terrorist acts in the United Kingdom or elsewhere or otherwise in the interests of national security;
	(ii)   to assist the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting serious crime;
	(iii)   the purposes of controlling illegal immigration and enforcing immigration controls;
	(iv)   the purposes of securing proper provision of the following public services, namely
	(a)   healthcare,
	(b)   housing,
	(c)   education, and
	(d)   social security benefits.'.
	No. 20, in clause 45, page 39, line 14, at end insert
	'But an order bringing sections 8 to 10 into force may not be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before, and approved by, a resolution of both Houses of Parliament.'.

Patrick Mercer: We have been here so many times previously, and I am sure that the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), is sharpening his knife to prepare many of the arguments that I have heard twice in Committee and on which his knife has been blunted at least once.
	I hope that the group of amendments, which simply questions the purpose of the register and logically extends that questioning to the card, is reasonably straightforward. I hope that the amendments are self-explanatory but I shall speak briefly about them.
	Clause 1(3)(a) reads:
	"The statutory purposes are to facilitate, by the maintenance of a record of registrable facts about individuals in the United Kingdom . . . the provision of a convenient method for such individuals to prove registrable facts about themselves to others",
	to which amendment No. 8 would add, "who reasonably require proof".
	Amendment No. 9 makes a considerable addition to the provisions, and is logically followed by amendment No. 16, which would amend part of the register and the card referred to later in the Bill. Amendment No. 9 would delete paragraphs (a) to (e) of clause 1(4), and would add a new paragraph (a) that something is necessary in the public interest if it is:
	"of assistance to the Secretary of State in preventing or detecting terrorist acts in the United Kingdom or elsewhere or otherwise in the interests of national security".
	Everyone can read the amendment for themselves, but I would like to point out that it also proposes the addition of the words:
	"For the purposes of subsection (4)—
	'relevant public services' means the provision of—
	(a) healthcare,
	(b) housing,
	(c) education, and
	(d) social benefits;
	'serious crime' means crime giving rise to an offence triable only on indictment.'."
	Except for the last line, that provision is almost the same as amendment No. 16, which relates to identity cards rather than to the register of facts. I hope that amendment No. 6 is also fairly clear. It simply proposes to delete the reference to national security in clause 1(4)(a).
	The purpose of the amendments is to question in detail precisely why we are setting about this extremely difficult, demanding and intrusive piece of legislation. We have already heard the contradictory explanations for the purpose of the register and the card. For instance, on 3 July 2002, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), who was then Home Secretary, said:
	"I accept that it is important that we do not pretend that an entitlement card would be an overwhelming factor in combating international terrorism".
	Later, however, in answer to a question from another Member of Parliament, he said that he would not rule out the possibility of
	"their substantial contribution to countering terrorism".—[Official Report, 3 July 2002; Vol. 388, c. 231, 236.]
	I hope that the Minister will explain how those statements now stack up, after the relatively short space of three years. In the light of the events of 7 and 21 July, can the former Home Secretary's opinions be reconciled with the Minister's adapted view of the register and the card?
	In December 2004, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside told Parliament that the security services had advised him that 35 per cent. of terrorists used false identification. The general secretary of Interpol, Ron Noble, told the House of Lords Home Affairs Committee that all terrorist incidents involved the use of a false passport. However, when he was challenged about that claim, he was unable to present evidence to support it. In 2004, Privacy International published the findings of the only research ever conducted into the relationship between identity cards and terrorism. It found that there was no evidence to support the claim that the cards could combat terrorist threats. Its report stated:
	"The presence of an identity card is not recognised by analysts as a meaningful or significant component in anti-terrorism strategies."
	The events of 7 and 21 July obviously brought this issue into much closer focus. I thought it instructive that the current Home Secretary pointed out at the time that even if identity cards had been used, they would have made absolutely no difference to the events of those two days, which the Minister and I both remember clearly, as we were in Committee on at least one of those days.
	If this card is designed to combat terrorism, how can it do so against the sort of terrorist that we saw operating in this country in July? This country has tried identity cards previously in the shape of specialist driving licences, as issued in Northern Ireland. They were never broadcast as such, but they were a distinct attempt to try to contain terrorism using a form of identity card. They failed—I can vouch for that, as I was there at the time. The great benefit to us 10, 20 or 30 years ago was that those terrorists with whom we were dealing were identifiable, as many of the families involved had been engaged in terrorism for years, so it was a fair bet that a son or daughter born to a particular family might have subversive views. That is not so with the new brand of terrorist.

Lembit �pik: In relation to Northern Ireland, I agree that there have been attempts at introducing one form of identification or another down the years. Does he agree that were there any evidence whatever to suggest that formal identification methodologies had been effective in Northern Ireland, the Government would have provided it, yet there has not been a single occasion on which they have been able to do so in the entire history of the identity cards debate?

Patrick Mercer: I am grateful for that intervention, and I will answer the hon. Gentleman by saying that it was my experience that this quasi-identity cardwhich was issued first in the mid-1970s, I thinkhad a converse effect to that which the Government sought. As he will remember, anybody who had such a card or driving licence on their person had a pass, which, if shown to police or soldiers, gave them free passage. So, it had precisely the opposite effect to that which was intended. If the cards had worked in Ulster, why was their further use not developed? Why was biometric information not added to those cards when that experiment was tried? Empirically, the experiment failed to control terrorism, and I believe that it will do so again. From the mouths of Ministers, including the Home Secretary, it is acknowledged that identity cards would not have affected how clean skins operate inside this country.

Adrian Bailey: I have been listening to the hon. Gentleman's argument, and I accept that identity cards would not prevent a particular incident from taking place. However, their use and a register would make it much easier to identify people using multiple identities subsequently, and would therefore aid their capture and reduce the global pool of would-be terrorists.

Patrick Mercer: That is a fair point. If that is the case, however, first, let us confirm that the biometrics and technology will work to allow that to happen. Secondly, why did the Home Secretary say in July that identity cards would not have affected the two sets of attacks? I do not know. Conceivably, if the card can be made to work, if the biometrics are feasible, and if it comes in at a reasonable cost, there may be something in it. I see nothing at the moment that suggests that it would work, however.

Adrian Bailey: I cannot recall the Home Secretary's exact words in July, but I do recall a discussion about the use of identity cards in Spain to identify the Madrid bombers, and about mobile phones. Because it was necessary to register an identity card when buying a mobile phone, it was possible to track down the bombers.

Patrick Mercer: That is not the point that the Government are making. The bombers in Spain were identified as a result of a number of basic mistakes that they made with the use of mobile phones. The fact that evidence had been well maintained and recorded, and had been used by both the mobile phone companies and the policeas well as the curiously amateurish behaviour of the terroristsallowed the terrorists to be identified.
	The hon. Gentleman did, however, make a fair point. The bombers who killed themselves on 7 July did two things very deliberately. First, they made sure that their faces were recorded by cameras before they went to their deaths. Secondlythis is really the pointthey made sure that they had on them forms of identity so that their bodies could be identified, and they would reap whatever rewards they thought they might as a result of claiming responsibility for their acts.

Andy Burnham: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the Spanish identity card played no role in the detection of those responsible for the Madrid bombings?

Patrick Mercer: It certainly played no role in preventing the bombings, although it helped when linked with telephone records.
	Had identity cards been on the bodies of the 7 July bombers, that would have been frightfully helpful; but that is not the point. The cards are not about trying to identify dead bodies. They are about what we call preventing terrorism.

Andy Burnham: The bombers in Spain were still alive, and the police and security services were able to locate them rapidly. That may have prevented them from carrying out further damage and destruction.

Patrick Mercer: That is simply not the case. As the Minister is well aware, those terrorists attacked again within two weeks.

Tobias Ellwood: I think that this is a bit of a red herring. The amendments are concerned with how we can make the register more robust. Loopholes in the Bill need to be tightened. There are far too many freedoms in it. We are trying to deal with serious crime. We are trying to ensure that facts about security are listed. We shall discuss that later, but massive loopholes are littered throughout the Bill, and we seek to tighten them.
	May I add that all this discussion about whether or not someone has

Mr. Deputy Speaker: No, the hon. Gentleman may not. An intervention should be very much more concise.

Patrick Mercer: My hon. Friend is right: there are loopholes all over the place. The amendments seek to define the purpose of the register and of the identity cards, which is why at least two are linked.

Lynne Jones: I agree with the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood). Is not the point that the Spanish identity card has a very different scope from the card proposed in the Bill, which includes an enormous database? The Government could obtain the advantages that they believe the Spanish card provides with a much simpler system.

Patrick Mercer: The hon. Lady is right. The Spanish model is entirely different from the one proposed by the Government.
	In the context of terrorism, the card stands condemned by its own statements and indeed those of Ministers. Let me amplify a point I made earlier. In January this year, a mess tent in Baghdad was blown to pieces. There were 43 casualties, both Iraqi and American. It seems likely that the suicide bomber who blew them up was an Iraqi policeman, and that he was carrying an identity card that allowed him to get through the security checks and to penetrate to the very centre of his target before detonating his bomb. In some ways, such a card would not impede terrorism; indeed, it might actually help it.

John Gummer: Do we not need to know from the Government precisely how helpful identity cards and the register would be in the detection and prevention of terrorism, so that we can judge whether the system's disadvantages would be outweighed by such help? Is it not true that at the moment, the Government are offering the blanket statementsometimes it is a blanket statementthat this provision will be frightfully helpful in dealing with terrorism, but that on other occasions, they say that it will not be quite so helpful? What we really need to know is how helpful it would be, so that we can properly judge whether it is worth the candle.

Patrick Mercer: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention and he is absolutely right: we need to ask ourselves whether this card is really going to deliver the promises that have been made. I have made the point, I trust, that the Government's view changes by the day. On First Reading, which I had the perhaps tainted pleasure of attending some months ago, terrorism played a big part in the Bill's logic. When we went through the Bill for the second time, the Government's line suddenly changed after 7 July. In a way, it is lucky for them that the House rose on 21 July, before these issues could be examined in any great detail.

Lindsay Hoyle: I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman's military background and for the great knowledge that he brings to this House, but I am a little bit concerned about the example of the mess tent bombing that he mentioned. He said that the ID card allowed the bomber to access the tent and then to explode the bomb, but even if the bomber had not possessed such a card, he would surely have had some kind of pass; in fact, without one he could not have been a member of the police force. We should also consider the example of this House, which gives passes to people so that they can enter it. So trying to argue that the ID card allowed the bomb to be planted in the mess tent is stretching the House a little.

Patrick Mercer: I would not wish to stretch the House in any way, shape or form, and nor would I wish to stretch my credibility with the hon. Gentleman. I was trying to expand on, perhaps even dilate on, the point that a form of identity cancanassist terrorists. Obviously, the circumstances in Iraq are very different from those that we face today. The fact remains, however, that had the identity card scheme been in place, such cards would quite legitimately and properly have been with all the bombers who died on 7 July. They might have been very useful in identifying their shattered remains, of course, but they certainly would not have prevented terrorism.

Peter Robinson: The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way. Is it not true that the more the security forces rely on identity cards, the less alert they will be to other factors? In the Iraq case that was mentioned, the person in question probably waved the identity card and managed to get straight in. But if similar circumstances arise in the United Kingdom, it is very likely that terrorists who do not want to be detected will have false identity cards, and that they will therefore be waved through the various systems of checks.

Patrick Mercer: Possibly, but such terrorists need not necessarily have false identities. Having a proper, pukka, legal, straightforward identity will not prevent terrorism. I was a serving soldier in Northern Ireland when the illustrated driving licence was introducedit was introduced first with a photograph and then with a thumbprintand we were told that it would be the solution to terrorism. Much of the terrorism in Ulster was conducted by people using cars, trucks and the like, and we were told that the licence would solve the problem. It did not. On the contrary, the tired, wet, exhausted and distracted soldiers saw that piece of identity as a passsomething to assist rather than impede.

Douglas Hogg: There may be a number of circumstances in which possession of an identification card helps to prevent terrorism, but in the majority of cases, that will be so only if the possession and carrying of the card is made a mandatory requirement of law. That, of course, is expressly excluded by the Bill. Does my hon. Friend agree?

Patrick Mercer: As usual, I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for his intervention. He is quite right that the carriage of the cardthough the register may have some useful purposesis not required by the Bill. Having sat through several Committee sittings, I know that we were told that enabling legislation could be introduced quickly to compel people to carry the card, but I absolutely take my right hon. and learned Friend's point.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: My hon. Friend is being notably generous in giving way. This provision pertains to who is to maintain the register and what is to appear on the card when it is issued. I am very concerned both about what is going to be on the card and about who will have access to it. For example, could clause 1(4)(d) oblige every employer to check every potential employee and, if so, how will employers do that and how will they gain access to the register?

Patrick Mercer: Those questions certainly need to be answered, but I would suggest a prior question: will the card work? Is the technology capable of recording the various details to which my hon. Friend has just referred? I shall not test your patience further, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by digressing to answer that question more fully. It will, in any case, recur later on and it remains a hugely good and important point.
	I believe that the Government have tried to make the card all things to all mena one-size-fits-all approach. We know that the card will not have to be carried and that no one can demand to see it, and we shall come on in due course to the cost of the card, which I believe will be prohibitive. The fact remains that the benefits of both the register and the identity card are highly dubious and I do not accept the claim that they will prevent terrorism.

Mark Fisher: As others have said, the hon. Gentleman is being extraordinarily generous in giving way. He is establishing some important points, but before he finishes, will he comment on the fact that the card will not only articulate identity, but allow the actions of the bearer to be traced? It is both a contact card and a contact-less card. As one enters a public place, the card establishes that one has been there. When an individual possesses the card, the actions and activities of its bearer are traceable. That is an important matter, which has not been at the forefront of debates on the Floor of the House, though it may have been mentioned in Committee.

Patrick Mercer: I can certainly confirm that the human rights elements of what might be called the Big Brother aspects of the card have been explored thoroughly in Committee. To my mind, those aspects are hugely disagreeable, but if the Government wish to control a population, put a population under surveillance or poke their nose into every detail of someone's life, I can see that those aspects could be viewed as highly desirable. I would reply to the hon. Gentleman by posing the question whether the card could ever work.

Matthew Taylor: Pursuing that point, is not the opposite likely to be the case? Is not the process of registration of tens of millions of people built around the same paper process that we already use to identify people and is it not capable of being abused? Could we not be creating an opportunity for thousands or even tens of thousands of false identities to be created at the very process of registration in the first placecarrying over all the weaknesses of the present ID systems? Once the card is issued, the biometric data can tell us that this is the person who holds that card, but it certainly does not tell us that it is a genuine identity.

Patrick Mercer: The old aphorism relating to any form of computer or intelligence work is, Rubbish in, rubbish out. Unless we get it right from the first principles, the card and the register stand little chance of success. [Interruption.] I seem to have had the desired effect on my own Benches. [Laughter.] We are getting the chance to check the dentures of one of my colleagues, thereby establishing his identity beyond doubt. [Laughter.]

Robert Marshall-Andrews: If I may leave terrorism for a moment and go on to the second claim made by the Government, concerning serious and organised crime. I have asked the Government on a number of occasions to provide onejust oneexample of a crime detected in this country in the recent past that would have been stopped by an identification card. No single example has been provided to me. Has any example been provided in Committee or to the hon. Gentleman?

Patrick Mercer: The hon. and learned Gentleman as usual puts his finger on it. I hope that my earlier quote from Interpol illustrates exactly that point. Nothing that is claimed for the card has been proved to my satisfaction.
	The card claims much but in practice will deliver little. It changes with the wind. The Government sometimes see the card as being the cure-all to everything, a panacea across the piece. It will sort out crime and prevent terrorism. It will be an entitlement card without parallel. But this group of amendments exposes the card and the register for what they are; unworkable.

Alistair Carmichael: Clauses 1 and 2 contain the meat of the Bill, as was reflected in Committee by the exceptionally substantial debate that we had on them. I observe in passing that now they are on the Floor of the House, we are to be allowed one hour and seven minutes to do them justice.
	As the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) said, time and again the Government have damaged their own case by constantly seeking to oversell identity cards, presumably because of the extraordinary costs that will be involved in their introduction and operation. Just as one argument is knocked down, so it seems another has to be produced. We are told that it is about identity fraud and then that it is not; that it is about terrorism, and then that it is not; that it is about benefit fraud and then that it is not.
	My concern is the same as that of the hon. Gentleman in relation to the underpinning of his amendments, although I have one or two detailed points where I disagree with him. I will come to them later, but my fundamental concern is that the Bill is exceptionally widely drawn. Nowhere is that more apparent than clause 1(4), which seeks to define those things that are considered to be necessary in the public interest.
	The House will see that paragraphs (a) to (d) are fairly sensibly and reasonably drawn. Paragraph (a) says:
	in the interests of national security.
	Paragraph (b) talks about
	the prevention or detection of crime
	or as our amendment No. 24 would have it, serious crime. Paragraph (c) says for
	the enforcement of immigration controls
	and (d)
	enforcement of prohibitions on unauthorised working or employment.
	So far, so good. But when one comes to (e), one finds the catch-all,
	securing the efficient and effective provision of public services.
	It is not so much a question of what that contains, but what it does not contain. The provision gives the Government carte blanche to hold and use information in just about any way they choose. As later clauses reveal, in almost every instance the Government will be able to appoint themselves the sole arbiter of what constitutes the public interest in these matters.

Lembit �pik: Does my hon. Friend recall that I questioned the Prime Minister about this matter? Although the Labour-led Welsh Assembly voted against requiring the use of identity cards to access public services, the Prime Minister was not willing to give any indication that there might be an exemption for Wales. That makes me believe that the Government are hell bent on introducing the provision, and that they are not simply giving themselves the option to do so.

Alistair Carmichael: My hon. Friend raises an important point, and it is clear that there will be different modes of operation in different parts of the UK. He has highlighted the situation in Wales, but the Scottish Executive have already made their position clear. In the public services for which they are responsiblethat is, health, education and policing, in the mainthe Executive have stated that they have no wish to use identity cards. It seems, happily, that the influence of the control freaks in No. 10 Downing street lessens the further one gets from London.

Douglas Hogg: The hon. Gentleman is making a very persuasive speech. Is not his argument supported by the Select Committee report, which states, in terms, that the purpose provisions in clause 1 are too widely drawn? The report says that those provisions should be narrowly confined, and offers some recommendations in that respect.

Alistair Carmichael: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is right, and his intervention allows me to explain why the concerns about the widely drawn nature of the purposes in clause 1 are important. The debate is not simply about the possession of an identity, but about how the Government have constructed their proposals. They intend to set up a register of the information provided, and then the Bill details how that information is to be usedwhen, where, and for what purpose.
	In effect, the Bill establishes a personal footprint for each individual that the Government can accessapparently at any time and for any reason, just about to find where people have been and what they have been doing. As I and others have said in the House before, the Bill redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state, or the individual and the Government. It seems to proceed on the assumption that, in some way, the people are accountable to the Government. My contention is that that should be the other way aroundthat the Government should be accountable to the people. If the Government need access to the personal footprint that I have described, they should provide a coherent and compelling reason.

Matthew Taylor: My hon. Friend makes exactly the right point about how widely drawn are the powers of the state, as set out in clause 1. However, we know from the Cabinet Office leak that the Government also foresee that the information will be used by the private sector. Does my hon. Friend agree that a person's identity number and card may be required by a growing number of private-sector organisations, as validation of that individual's identity? As a result, those organisations will build up data around that number, and the Government may well be able to buy into that data. Is not this a system for allowing the collection of an almost infinite amount of information about individualsby the Government, and by those who might try to access various forms of data networks about people? The latter may pay for that information, but they might also procure it illegitimately, by breaking into those data networks.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Interventions should be brief, as this debate is very much time limited.

Alistair Carmichael: There is very little that I need add to my hon. Friend's intervention, other than to say that he makes a good point about function creep. That becomes possible because the purposes are so widely drawn.
	Government amendment No. 2 is unexceptionable. However, given the catalogue of examination that the Minister of State outlined earlier in response to the motion in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), it is remarkable that the Government should still feel it necessary to table their own amendments.
	The Minister of State was pressed in Committee on clause 7, which is the mechanism by which identity cards may be made compulsory. I read press reports during the summer months which suggested that the Minister had accepted during a Home Office seminar that the so-called super-affirmative procedure was defective and unworkable. Is that the case? If so, why have the Government not tabled amendments to rectify the defects today?

John Gummer: I am one of those in the House who believes in identity cards. My problem with the Bill is that the Government have shown an infallible ability so to form it that it drives away from their support the very people whose support one would have thought that they could have gained.
	The amendments go to the heart of the matter. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) has rightly pointed out that with this Bill the Government have given themselves every possibility to do almost anything in any circumstances. Many of us who are not unhappy with the concept of an identity card are unhappy with the concept of a Government who give themselves powers like that. Governments have an insatiable desire for power and therefore will use it in ways that most of us will find unacceptable.
	My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) made the point that seems to me central to this issue. If we are to agree with the Government that we should have identity cards, we need to know three clear things. First, what restrictions on the use of identity information will the Government put permanently in place and what mechanisms will they use to do so? We need to know the scope of the legislation. These clauses show that the scope is in no way restricted. It is envisaged to be as wide as the Government think it should be at any particular time.
	The second issue that the amendments raise is what the Government think that the identity card might do. I happen to think that there are certain areas in which it would be helpful and useful to have a unique register of everybody's name and address. It is possible to argue that that could be portrayed on a card. I happen to think the other way round from my hon. and learned Friend; I think that the register is more important than the card. Be that as it may, there are mechanisms by which this could be done. What the Government cannot do is to claim for identity cards things that are self-evidently not true. The Government in so doing are driving away people who might otherwise have been corralled. It seems to me that the Government are making a series of claims, hoping that one way or another they will pick up the support of all sorts of people whose support they would not otherwise have gained. In fact, the opposite is happening. As each of these claims is made and found wanting, people begin to ask whether the whole idea is a sensible one.
	The third issue that the amendments raise is what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough referred to as Will it work? Unless we know its scope and what it is supposed to do, we can make no judgment as to whether this particular schemelet alone the technology, which one cannot deal with on this group of amendmentswill work. None of these things seem to me to be evident from the Bill. It is an inconvenience of the House that in these days of truncated debates and the significantly underused potential of Parliament, the only way in which we can get at these things is by tabling amendments such as this and asking for sensible responses. So I put three simple questions to the Minister. Will he put in the Library a list of the specific purposes of the Bill? What does he think he will be able to do after he has got it that he cannot do now? Will he, perhaps with a little narrative, describe incidents that could have been better dealt with if only he had had this particular equipment? That seems to me to be what any sensible person would do if they were running a business and thinking of spending a lot of money. They would ask how they could be in a better position and whether the solution would have been cost-effective if applied to their past actions.
	Perhaps the Minister could explain the role of the identity card in the prevention of terrorism. I can see that it would be useful in circumstances in which someone claims to be Mr. Jones to check whether they are indeed that person. That is a satisfactory concept, but I cannot see how widely that could be used in the direct battle against terrorism. The Minister should tell us more about that.
	I have always thought that it would be very helpful for people in this country to know that those people who claim benefits are entitled to them and not fiddling the system. I think that not for atavistic reasons, but because I happen to believe that benefits are an important part of a civilised society and people should not be besmirched because the system does not work very well. We have heard such contradictory views from the Government about how ID cards could be used against fraud, how much that might save and how many people might be involved, that it is difficult for any sane person to make a judgment. Many of us want to make a judgment, because we are not here for theological reasons only. Can the Minister give a definitive statement of how ID cards and the register will be useful in that area?

Roberta Blackman-Woods: Why does the right hon. Gentleman have a problem with clause 1(4), which clearly outlines the purposes of the Bill? With which of those uses of the Bill does he have a problem?

John Gummer: Well, clause 1(4) may outline the purposes of the Bill, but it is on such a broad canvas that it is like a Tintoretto painting, with many little figures. The Government have focused on a tiny part of the canal and said that they are concerned only about that bit, but they have painted all the rest in because it is pretty and because they might be concerned about that campanile at a later stage. That is a fanciful example, but perhaps it will cheer up those listening to the debate.

Douglas Hogg: My question for my right hon. Friend is in part a response to the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods). When my right hon. Friend sounds out the Minister, as he is doing so clearly, he may wish to ask what aspect of government does not fall within the definition of
	securing the efficient and effective provision of public services.
	That is included in the stated purposes of the Bill.

John Gummer: My right hon. and learned Friend has underlined the point that my metaphor of a great painting is far too small. The Bill will enable the Government to use the ID card and the register to discover the number of times an individual has used a public library, if they decide that discovering that fact is in the national interest. The hon. Lady must understand that the clause would enable the Government to discover anything they likeprobably not the number of times a person uses public lavatories, but that could be one of the examples.

Edward Garnier: When my right hon. Friend asks the Minister to place that document in the Library, will he also ask him to place in the Library a draft of the 60 statutory instruments that the Bill will give the Secretary of State the power to produce?

Douglas Hogg: 61.

Edward Garnier: My right hon. and learned Friend is quite right. Will my right hon. Friend also ask the Minister to produce, as the Government promised they would in Committee, the code of practice on penalties, which is referred to in clause 36? We are legislating in a vacuum, and it is essential that my right hon. Friend presses his point because, unless the detail of the Bill is got right now, the public will be at a loss.

John Gummer: My hon. and learned Friend is, of course, absolutely right, but my difficulty in increasing the number of things that I want to ask the Minister to do is that I will reveal to the world that close-kept secret that there is no information about anything that is detailed enough for anyone to make a real judgment about the Bill. I am not saying this from any antagonistic position. I want identity cardsthey are a good ideabut the Minister is making it quite impossible for anyone who is logically, sensibly approaching this matter to vote for the Bill, for we know nothing about all the key issues. Without that knowledge, how am I to reassure my constituents, whom I have always told that I want identity cards I have always supported themthat this proposal does not run counter to everything else that I have ever told them?

Lembit �pik: Will the right hon. Gentleman add a further request to the long list of questions about the intention? Will he ask the Minister to explain how the Government will guarantee that no one with a mind to corrupt and abuse the database can gain access to it and perhaps gain employment by doing so? Obviously, if there is corruption on the inside, the system falls apart. I suspect that the Government will not be able to give that guarantee.

John Gummer: The Minister will have heard the hon. Gentleman's sensible proposition. The Minister has received a number of requests, so I shall leave him with an answer: he ought to think seriously about taking the whole thing out of the Government's control. It seems to me that the Bill would be acceptable only if it were entirely independently controlled and all these issues were decided not by the Government and not by the weight of government. Frankly, these decisions are too important to be made by people who are parti pris. For the Government to decide what they think is in the public interest when what they will decide is what they think is in their interest, which is a wholly different thing, seems to be too great a power for the House to give to the Government. Therefore, I ask the Minister, please, not only to answer my questions, but to seek a different format that will ensure that, in this the mother of Parliaments, we do not give away to the Government powers that no previous generation has ever been willing to give.

Andy Burnham: I apologise to those Opposition Members who still wish to speak, but this section of debate will conclude at a quarter to 6, and a lot of serious issues have been raised about the purpose of the scheme, so it is only right to address them in detail.
	Clause 1, with which we are preoccupied, sets out the purpose of the national identity register, and I would tell the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) that two very clear statutory purposes for the Bill are given in that clause: first, to provide a convenient method by which individuals can prove who they arehe recognised that he might indeed welcome thatand, secondly, to provide a secure and reliable method by which public bodies and others can ascertain identification and thereby better serve the public interest.

Tobias Ellwood: I shall try to be briefer than I was in my last intervention. I thank you for allowing me some latitude, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	The register will only work if there is a way to check that an individual belongs to the ID, so verification systemsperhaps using some form of scannerwill be needed. Does the Minister agree that, every time we embark on a plane flight, we will have to confirm who we are by using some form of system to verify the card itself?

Andy Burnham: I most certainly do. When the hon. Gentleman travels on an aeroplane, I think he will find that he has to carry identification with him. That is nothing new, but by moving to a highly secure means of identification we can be sure that the people sitting in aeroplanes are who they claim to be. That is one of the principal reasons why we are introducing the Bill.
	The point that Opposition Members seem to be missing is that, although they may not like it, the running of society depends on identification. Every day, millions of transactions are carried out by public and private sector bodies to ascertain people's identity. It is directly in the interest of us all, as individuals and as citizens, that those checks be carried out to the highest possible standard and as efficiently as possible.

Douglas Hogg: The Minister is dealing with what is deemed to be in the public interest. Will he tell the House which aspects of government do not fall within the definition of
	securing the efficient and effective provision of public services?
	Most of us believe that it could extend to any function of government of every kind.

Andy Burnham: I know that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is assiduous in these matters and always reads the legislation, but perhaps I might refer him to paragraphs (a) to (e), subsection (4) of clause 1, where he will see clearly set out the purposes of the Bill and the functions for which we are introducing it. His answer is before him.

Mark Fisher: The Minister referred to the fact that people should be able to prove who they are, and in answer to the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) cited the usefulness of passports in establishing people's identity before they went on a flight. The difference between a passport and an identity card, as far as I can work out, is that for a passport one's identity must be vouched for by a responsible person such as a doctor, magistrate or Member of Parliament. Will every person who registers for an identity card have to obtain an endorsement from an outside person?

Andy Burnham: That is not just for passports. Catching an internal flight in the UK requires a form of identification and the ID card would provide a useful means of doing that. As my hon. Friend knows, we are describing a system that would utterly change the method of applying for passports. It will involve moving to a system of application by interview, whereby the individual is present when they are enrolling their biometrics. That is the premise on which the scheme is being rolled out. That front-end systemthe higher standard of identity checkwill give my hon. Friend the guarantees that he seeks.

Richard Shepherd: I should be grateful if the Minister returned to the question asked by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg). He referred the Minister to paragraph (e) of subsection (4)
	for the purpose of securing the efficient and effective provision of public services.
	What falls outside that in the public interest? That was the question put to the Minister, but he merely referred us back to that paragraph. Will he please give a justification or an answer?

Andy Burnham: Across the public sector, bodies are performing identity checks day in, day out, be they the local council, the Criminal Records Bureau or the DVLAany number of organisations. The point is that those checks are already being carried out, and if a higher standard of identity check can be introduced it must surely be in the interests of each and every one of us[Interruption.] Does the hon. Gentleman want to listen to the answer? It is in the interest of each and every one of us that those checks be carried out to a higher standard than at present.

Several hon. Members: rose

Andy Burnham: I want to make progress to answer some of the points that Members have raised during the debate.
	Let me make one thing clear to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones): it is not and never has been our intention to create an elaborate database that would hold detailed personal profiles for every individual. Rather, it is our intention to create a system that takes basic personal facts about each of usname, address and date of birthwhich are already held on databases, such as those for passports or the DVLA, and link them to a unique personal identifier, such as a fingerprint or an iris scan.

Lembit �pik: Will the Minister give way?

David Howarth: Will the Minister give way?

Andy Burnham: I want to finish answering the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak.
	The link between those basic facts and the unique identifier puts the individual citizen in control of the use of their data. They alone can put that personal stamp on those basic facts and they hold the key to their use. That is one of the main arguments for the system. It is a basic identification system, not the elaborate database about which my hon. Friend seemed to have concerns.

Lynne Jones: Will my hon. Friend explain how the Government's proposals, which involve storing 10 fingerprints, facial biometrics and two irises on the national database, will achieve his objectives more effectively than the requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, under which just a face and fingerprint are stored on a chip on a card that people carry?

Andy Burnham: My hon. Friend raises an important point. We had to take a decision on the extent to which biometrics would be collected when enrolment was carried out. We believe that it is right to ensure that it will not be necessary to bring people back for further enrolment two or more years after their initial enrolment. The combination of different biometrics will give the high standard of identification check that we want.

Stewart Hosie: The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, of all bodies, has put together information about the use of multiple biometrics. Far from creating fewer false accepts and false rejects, the reverse can be the case in certain circumstances, so multiple biometrics do not necessarily lead to the results that the Minister wants. His assertion in reply to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) was thus not correct, so will he comment on the fact that using multiple biometrics will not deliver the beneficial results that he wants?

Andy Burnham: We will proceed to a full technology trial if the Bill receives Royal Assent. In the interim, I refer the hon. Gentleman to the report by the National Physical Laboratory, which examined the matter in detail and concluded that biometric systems could be used in the way in which we propose. I also refer him to experiences in the United States, where such systems are already in widespread use. The technology is not new and coming to us only now, but established and used today throughout the world to prove people's identities.

Stewart Hosie: The German Federal Parliament's Office of Technology Assessment warned that introducing biometrics on such a scale would be a gigantic laboratory test and that face recognition was known to fail. Other bodies throughout the world argue the case against what the Minister says.

Andy Burnham: The European Union has already agreed to move in the direction of requiring the widespread use of biometrics. The United States has also taken such a decision in principle, as has the International Civil Aviation Organisation, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak referred a few moments ago. It is up to the hon. Gentleman if he wants the British Government to stand back from that and thus ensure that British citizens have second-class passports that will not enable them to travel with freedom and convenience in the future, but Labour Members will not take that decision.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: The Minister said that it was not the Government's intention to create a vast body of information and that the Bill sets out what may be stored on the database. However, he is aware that Ministers will be enabled by secondary legislation to add to the categories of information on the database, which causes great concern to many of us. Will he comment on that and, especially, the report in today's edition of The Guardian that the Government will give an undertaking that that power could not be used? I do not know where that provision appears in the Bill, so I would grateful if the Minister dealt with the matter.

Andy Burnham: We do not have time to consider Government amendment No. 1, but I refer my hon. and learned Friend to it because it will give him the reassurance that he wants. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) raised the legitimate point in Committee that clause 1(5)(g) suggested that personal sensitive data could be covered by the Bill, such as those on the police national computer. We have thus tabled Government amendment No. 1 to rule out the use of sensitive personal data, as defined by the Data Protection Act 1998, with which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) will be familiar.

Several hon. Members: rose

Andy Burnham: I will press on, because I do not have much time.
	Terrorism was raised by many Opposition Members. No Minister has ever claimed that the proposal is a silver bullet to deal with terrorism, but the scheme as conceived will provide the security services and the police with a useful tool, enabling them to tackle and identify individuals responsible for terrorism. The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) asked me to give a definitive statement explaining why the measure is useful in tackling terrorism. I refer him to the head of the Security Service, who said:
	ID cards will make it more difficult for terrorists to operate.
	We must listen to the security services, and we must take on board the points that they make. The right hon. Gentleman will remember better than me debates in the early 1990s about closed circuit television in which the same fears about a surveillance society and function creep were expressed. No one in this country can doubt the role that CCTV played in the aftermath of the London bombings.

Patrick Mercer: I acknowledge what the head of the Security Service said, but where is the proof? Where is the evidence? Can the Minister point to an incident that was prevented at a certain time and place in a certain country because of the possession of such an identity card? Have things been improved?

Andy Burnham: The argument is clear. The main strength of the biometric system is that individuals can only register their personal details once, because they have only one set of biometrics to register. Terrorist networks around the world rely and thrive on the use of multiple identities. They use multiple travel documents and passports. Tackling that is one of the Bill's key strengths.

Lembit �pik: The Minister and the Government have failed to answer a fundamental question. Can they guarantee that the system is not open to corruption? If the Minister wishes to be taken seriously on the issue, can he give a 100 per cent. commitment that there is no opportunity for corruption within the system itself?

Andy Burnham: All afternoon we have heard from Liberal Democrat conspiracy theorists who seem to think that this is about creating great things that will be used to control people. However, is the hon. Gentleman confident that the system for issuing passports is as secure as it could be? If he does not accept the new system, how does he propose to make the passport system more secure?

Lembit �pik: rose

Andy Burnham: I will not give way, but as the hon. Gentleman has raised the issue on many occasions I shall give him one instance of a serious crime that identity cards could help to prevent. Last week, on Tuesday 11 October, Metro revealed that a fraudster who created 130 false identities to swindle hundreds of banks out 1.1 million was jailed for five and a half years. Identity fraud is not a figment of our imaginationit is a real problem that affects more and more of my constituents and perhaps the hon. Gentleman's too. The issue is repeatedly brought to our attention, so it is right to take action against it.

Mark Fisher: As we will not be able to debate Government amendment No. 1, will my hon. Friend explain the difference between a registrable fact and information? How does information differ from a registrable fact?

Andy Burnham: Government amendment No. 1 clarifies the definition of an identity card by means of a minor amendment. The information mentioned in clause 1 is qualified by the additional reference in Government amendment No. 2. That gives my hon. Friend the assurance that he seeks.
	The points raised in the debate have been dealt with on many occasions by me and by my hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality

It being quarter to Six o'clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker put the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [this day].
	The House divided: Ayes 267, Noes 321.

Question accordingly negatived.
	It being after quarter to Six o'clock, Mr Deputy Speaker then proceeded to put forthwith the Question to be disposed of at that hour.
	Amendment made: No. 1, in page 2, line 20 [Clause 1], at end insert
	'(5A)   But the registrable facts falling within subsection (5) (g) do 'not include any sensitive personal data (within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1998 (c.29)) or anything the disclosure of which would tend to reveal such data.'.[Andy Burnham.]

Clause 5
	  
	Applications Relating to Entries in the Register

Neil Gerrard: I beg to move amendment No. 5, in page 4, line 42, leave out 'must' and insert
	'may, if the applicant so chooses'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
	No. 39, in page 5, line 17, at end insert
	', provided that the specified place is no further than 20 miles by road to the nearest point on the public road network to the individual's place of residence'.
	No. 36, in page 5, line 18, leave out paragraph (b).
	No. 37, in page 5, line 18, leave out
	', and other biometric information about himself,'.
	No. 38, in page 5, line 25, at end add
	'(7)   The Secretary of State shall make provision for local facilities to satisfy the attendance requirements of subsection (5)(a).
	(8)   The Secretary of State shall make provision for home visits to people unfit to travel to satisfy the requirements of subsection (5)(a).'.
	No. 13, in page 5, line 26, leave out Clause 6.
	No. 14, in page 6, line 11, leave out Clause 7.

Neil Gerrard: The amendment would make it possible to be issued with a designated document without having to go on the national identity register by replacing the word must with
	may, if the applicant so chooses.
	It would thus remove one of the most important elements of compulsion from the Bill.
	The content of the register and its use is probably the major issue for me. The register will be different from anything else that is being constructed in parts of the world where identity cards are used or biometric passports are being introduced. No other register of which I know has the audit trail that was mentioned earlier. The Government clearly have a problem when they say, as they have said from the beginning of the debates on identity cards, that the system will initially be voluntary. There is a contradiction between claiming that it will be voluntary and getting people on the national identity register. The amendment deals with that.
	A related issue is defining exactly what constitutes a designated document. There is no doubt from comments in previous debates that a passport will be a designated document. That may apply to other things. From reading the Committee proceedings, a designated document might be a Criminal Records Bureau letter, a firearms certificate or a driving licence. That information is important because it affects the scope of clause 5 and those who will have to register under it to get a document that they may want or need.
	Dealing with compulsion is at the heart of the amendment. Compulsion crops up in different forms in various clauses. The Government have clearly said that the Bill does not provide for compelling people to carry an identity card. There will be no compulsion, without further legislation, to produce an identity card to access services. There is no compulsion to have a card and be registered. However, the tactics are clear: the measure is an enabling Bill and, ultimately and inevitably, having a card will be compulsory. It will certainly become compulsory to register. It became clear during previous debates that that is the ultimate aim. The tactic is obviously to leave the difficult cases until the end. They include people who do not have passports or driving licences, such as those who are elderly or infirm, and those who are difficult to tackle because they have chaotic lifestyles.
	However, clause 5 provides for compulsion from day one in a slightly more subtle form.

Nick Palmer: I apologise for missing the first moments of my hon. Friend's speech. Does not he agree that even the Bill's critics have said that it is desirable to test the concept of identity cards on a large number of people, otherwise we cannot get a fair impression? What is more natural than to test them on people who seek official documents, such as passports?

Neil Gerrard: Some people might be prepared to be involved in trying out an ID card but let them make that choice rather than compelling them to do it. Let me be clear about what has been said previously. Some people have said to me that our manifesto contained a commitment to ID cards. Let me therefore quote the relevant passage. It states:
	We will introduce ID cards, including biometric data like fingerprints, backed up by a national register and
	the part that is especially relevant to the amendment
	rolling out initially on a voluntary basis as people renew their passports.
	Any normal personby that I mean people outside this placewould interpret that as, When I renew my passport, I can choose whether to go on the register and have an ID card. That is what initially voluntary would mean to anyone who read it.
	However, the clause does not provide for something that is truly voluntary and the amendment tries to remedy that. Indeed, I am being generous because the amendment would provide for more than the manifesto outlined. It would apply not only to passports but to other registrable documents. To all practical purposes, the clause provides for compulsion.

Simon Hughes: May I check that the hon. Gentleman and I share the same interpretation? The announcement yesterday that one could get a 30 identity card and buy a passport separately does not mean that, when one buys a passport, one would have the option of saying, Thank you for the passport but I don't want the ID card. Unless the amendment is accepted, one would be made to have the ID card.

Neil Gerrard: The hon. Gentleman is right. The Bill clearly provides that, to get a designated document, a person must include an application to be entered on the register. One could claim that the person did not necessarily have to be presented with an ID card, but being on the register is what matters. The implication is clear. Not registering would mean no renewal of a passport or new passport. According to what constitutes a designated document, it could mean no driving licence and no Criminal Records Bureau check. Of course, I could decide that I did not want a passport. I could decide not to travel, drive or apply to the Criminal Records Bureau. The implication is that, by not registering, I would lose abilities or what some of us regard as rights.
	It has been accepted for hundreds of years that a British citizen has a right to leave and re-enter the country. The passport has traditionally been a travel document that facilitated one's ability to leave and return to the country. However, if the Bill is passed in its current form, I cannot exercise that right without registering my biometrics.

Simon Hughes: Does the hon. Gentleman also agree that many of us would be willing to accept an international agreement that, to travel internationally and have a passport, certain other information had to be given, but that that is entirely different from having to comply with the new Big Brother system, fill in a form and register in order to remain in our country and live here, without any international travel obligations? I will buy one but I shall never be persuaded of the second.

Neil Gerrard: There is a question of choice involved: do we want to travel internationally? It might well be that, under international agreements, other information has to be stored. I do not have a problem with having biometric data on a passport; that is not the issue for me. The issue is the register, the database on which all that biometric and other information is to be stored.

Kali Mountford: Will my hon. Friend explain how he envisages a biometric passport working without the support of a register? If such a passport is presented in a country that requires a biometric passport without there being a register to check that the information is correct, how on earth is it to operate?

Neil Gerrard: That question ought to be put to just about every other country in the world that is introducing biometric data on passports, because they are not going to have a national register such as the one proposed in the Bill. For instance, biometric passports are being introduced in Germany, yet German law specifically prohibits the construction of a database using that information. Biometric documents are also being introduced in Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland. Those countries are going down the road of introducing biometrics, but without setting up a national database.
	The United States is often cited as the reason for our introducing biometric passports, because we will not be eligible for its visa waiver scheme if we do not have them. When we turn up at the airport in the US, a machine will compare the biometrics on our passport with our own personal biometrics. That is how the system will be used. A comparison will be made between the document that we are carrying and our personal biometrics. That will show that I am the person whose biometrics are on the document. The United States will not then try to check back to a national database, either in this country or anywhere else. If it wished to, there would need to be some serious amendments to the Bill to allow access by other countries to the information on our national register.

Tobias Ellwood: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, to ensure that a terrorist did not get on to an aeroplane, if everyone were compelled to be on a register, their ID card would somehow have to be verified, to prove that they were the person whose details were on it? That means that we should need some form of verification device at every airport. That would make the ID card redundant, because everyone would be on the register, and the Minister confirmed earlier that there would be verification systems at airports. The question of whether ID cards should be compulsory is therefore academic.

Neil Gerrard: We must be careful not to exaggerate what can be done through biometric checks at airports or anywhere else. It is possible to check whether I am the person whose details are on a card. But let us consider the number of people who come in and out of the UK or any other major country every year. About 80 million people, of whom 60 million are British citizens, come in and out of British airports each year. It is inevitable that many of them will be travelling without biometric documents for a long time to come. We must be careful not to exaggerate the level of security that we can achieve. I am not suggesting that we should not make those checks if they can be made, but the issue that really concerns me is not the general principle but the question of compelling someone who applies for a biometric passport to be on the register.

Robert Smith: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government's need to use this element of compulsion to get the scheme started suggests that it would not be a popular scheme if it were left to the voluntary initiative of individuals to decide to register on the database? By doing this, are not the Government recognising that the scheme will be unpopular?

Neil Gerrard: The scheme will get less and less popular as people learn more about it. That is already happening, and it will continue once it starts to roll out. This has already been experienced in other countries: Australia is an obvious example. The more people knew about the system as it started to come into operation, the less popular it became. As I said earlier, the tactic is very clear: try to do the easy ones first. Someone who is applying for a passport, and who needs that passport, will feel that they have no alternative. They will feel that if they do not put their name on the register it could cause them serious problems in other ways.

Nick Palmer: On a point of clarification, my hon. Friend cited Denmark as an example of a country that was introducing biometric passports without a compulsory register. I used to live in Denmark, and I know that it has had a compulsory personal register for more than 40 years.

Neil Gerrard: There is a difference between a personal register and one that contains all our biometrics. My understanding is that Denmark is not going to have a register that contains all the biometric information as well. So the checks that are carried out there will be on a one-to-one basis using the passport. That is certainly the case in a number of other countries.

Lynne Jones: The passport authority already has a database containing all the information submitted when we apply for a passport. However, that is a static database that contains only our name, address and the other details that we submit. It does not have all the potential of the Government's proposed database for audit trails and for tracking where we are going or inquiring about our whereabouts. Neither does the present database have the vast complexity that will render the new one liable to all kinds of problems.

Neil Gerrard: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. We all know that information about us is stored on databases. The question is whether the proposed database is acceptable. Is it something that we want?

John Gummer: I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has noticed that, in this discussion, we are changing fundamentally the attitude towards passports. The passport is not a privilege offered by the Government to citizens. It is a right of citizens to get the support of their Government when travelling abroad. If the Government insist that we cannot have that right without compulsorily entering into something else, it is the first example of a change in the relationship between Government and subject. This is not an easy thing to bring about; it is a fundamental change to what the passport means. Inside our passports, there is a promise by the Government to do all that they can to enable me or any passport holder who is a British subject to move round the world unhindered. However, it will now become a privilege offered by the Government to such people as will sign up.

Neil Gerrard: That is a very important point. I referred to it earlier when I mentioned the right to leave and re-enter the country. These proposals do represent a change in the nature of the passport. In fact, they are beginning to change the passport from being a document that facilitates travel and can be used to seek assistance if needed to one that is becoming a sort of identity document.
	It is strange that an EU citizen exercising freedom of movement will be able to come in and out of the UK without having their data recorded on the national register, unless they want to remain here for more than three months. As a British citizen, however, I might find myself in the position of not being able to leave the country without having my biometrics recorded in that way.

Edward Garnier: The position is even more extraordinary than that. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there is a free travel area between the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom. Unless the Irish Republic buys and uses identity card scanners that match ours, the system will break down. So we should have not only the three-month allowance for touristsor touring terrorists, or anyone elsebut a hole on the western flank. The Government simply have not got their head round these issues. It is important for the House to realise that the hon. Gentleman is describing but part of the picture. It gets worse as one explores it further.

Neil Gerrard: I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for making that point. The issue of travel to and from Ireland was raised on Second Reading, and it has clearly not been resolved.
	My final pointgiven the limitation on time for this debate, and that I want to allow other Members the chance to speakis that the Bill is a form of creeping compulsion. It is not genuinely voluntary. That is the key to this amendment: to introduce a system that is, initially, voluntaryexactly as we said that we would do in the election earlier this year.

Edward Garnier: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) for the careful way in which he opened this debate. I can assure him that my party, at least, will have listened carefully to all that he said

Tim Farron: Will the Conservatives support it?

Edward Garnier: I see that the Wolfgang element has emerged. I assure the hon. Gentleman that no Government run by my party would bundle such people out or have them arrested under the terrorist legislation. I look forward to the support of the Liberal Democrats later in this debate, and I assure them that if they need protection, a Conservative Government will protect them from the increasing activities of the police and the state. Many Members might think that the Liberal Democrats are in need of quite a lot of protection. At this stage, however, I want to concentrate on the important issues that the amendments allow us to discuss.
	The hon. Member for Walthamstow began his speech by discussing the concept of the designated document. We had that discussion at some little length in Committee, and at no stage were the Government able to tell us precisely what they meant by the category of designated documents that they were going to include. What we discovered, which was instructive, is that the list is open-ended, undefined and designed to allow the Government, through clause 5, slowly but surely to allow a greater category of documents to become designated.
	In Committee, the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) and I discussed all the kinds of licences that one can get at a post office, and the Government had absolutely no idea whether those would be designated. We also realised that 20 per cent. of the population have never had, and never will have, a passport, which represents a huge proportion of the British population. In Committee, the Minister of State said:
	We have made no secret of the fact that registration on the database will ultimately be compulsorywe want universal coverage. That means two things: it might be appropriate to designate other documents, and it might be that the designation of such documents means a faster coverage of the entire population.[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 12 July 2005; c. 177.]
	At no stageI am sure that the Minister will confirm thiswas he able to produce a list of those documents that he hoped would become designated. Through the Bill, the Government are therefore asking us to give them a blank cheque simply to increase the creeping designation of documents. That is a wholly unhealthy way to design a piece of legislation, and it is even more unhealthy for Parliament to give the Government unseen powers over the citizen and the way in which he or she conducts his or her life. I therefore urge Members to listen carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said.
	I will leave the Liberal Democrat spokesman to deal at greater length with amendments Nos. 39, 36, 37 and 38. Clause 5, however, deals with applications relating to entries in the register, and with the powers that the Home Secretary will give himself, which we have not seen in any written form, to compel us as citizens to do what he wants. For example, he will be able to compel us to provide such information as he thinks fitwhich is undefinedfor the purpose of verifying information that may be entered in the register about an individual in consequence of his having made an application to go on the register. One is given the impression that applying to go on the register is something for which the Government are deeply grateful, and that it is a voluntary activity, but it is notit is distinctly compulsory and the limits of the Secretary of State's powers are undefined. The Government really ought to have the self-confidence to condescend to let us see the statutory instruments containing the 61 powers that they intend that we should be bound by. That is in parentheses, however.
	Under the Bill, individuals may be required to attend a specified place at a particular time in order to register, and to give up information about themselves to go into this huge, great national registerthis great bucket of private information that will slosh around between the various Departments and agencies, and to which private companies might even have access for a fee. If we consider the creeping way in which the Bill gives powers to the Government, it might well be that aspects of this data register will be available to certain private companies. As the Government farm out their functions to private companies, and if that is to work properly, those private companies must have access, if not to the whole of the information, at least to sections of it. I urge Members of the House to be very careful before they allow the Government to move down that road.
	Let us assume, however, that one lives in the Outer Hebrides, Orkney or Shetland, and there does not happen to be a suitable place to register on those islands, or let us assume that one is in rural Devon, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire or even Bournemouth[Laughter.] Let us assume that one will be required to travel some considerable distance, at one's own expense, to this gulag, where the Government will have one fingerprinted, photographed and otherwise processed. Why should the citizen be compelled, at the Home Secretary's direction, to travel around the country looking for the place where they must provide all this information? Why should he be compelled to travel to such a place to have his fingerprints and other biometric information taken and recorded, when one bears in mind that these are by and large not exactly secure methods of determining a person's identity?
	Let us consider fingerprints. In Leicester, which is the nearest large city to my constituency of Harborough, the Government subjected people to the fingerprint test in a pilot scheme to see whether it would happily provide a sensible biometric system. Of the 772 people who submitted their fingerprints in Leicester, 642, or 83.16 per cent., were identified correctlythe lowest rate of any test centre in the United Kingdomand there was a failure rate of almost 17 per cent. in matching the individual to the fingerprint. Across the country, approximately 45 million to 48 million people over the age of 16 will be required to add to the convenience of this Government by providing an entry on the register and giving in addition the information found in the schedule. Seventeen per cent. of between 45 million to 48 million people is a very big number, and yet this is the system that the Government are compelling us and our constituents to adhere to. There is not simply a smack on the wrist but a finea civil penaltyof up to 2,500 if an individual or one of their family members over the age of 16 fails or refuses to do what is required by the Secretary of State under one of the as yet unseen statutory instruments.

David Howarth: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that one of the most obnoxious aspects of the Bill is the way in which the civil penalty system to which he has referred works? It allows the Secretary of State to impose fines at his discretion, and if one has the cheek to object to his penalty, he has the power under clause 34 to increase the penalty, to deter one, I presume, from applying to him in the first place.

Edward Garnier: The hon. Gentleman might have noticed the rubber stamp on the front of the Billit may not be on the current versionsaying that the Secretary of State has declared that this Bill is compliant with the European convention on human rights. I thought that article 6, which says that one is entitled to a fair hearing, was a fairly central part of the European convention. The punitive aspects of clauses 6 and 7, and the clause mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, seem to me to ride straight through the convention and the rubber-stamped certificate introduced by the Home Secretary.
	People will have to travel huge distances to be photographed. The stupidity of that is only underlined by paragraph 2 of schedule 1, which refers to identifying information. It states
	The following may be recorded in an individual's entry in the Register.
	May means must, of course. What may be recorded is, for instance,
	a photograph of his head and shoulders.
	How many jokers in this country will stand with their backs to the camera? They will not have broken the requirements of paragraph 2: it will be perfectly lawful for people to allow the backs of their heads and shoulders to be photographed for the purposes of the schedule. Members may say that that is a minor and a flippant point, but it highlights the stupidity of this part of the Bill.
	It should also be borne in mind that the eyes of some members of the ethnic minorities do not respond to the biometric readers in quite the same way. The same applies to those who have had cataract operations. Why should people of my parents' generation, who now have eye problems such as cataracts and who fought for their country in the 1940s to prevent it from being overrun by a state of this kind, now endure the embarrassment of not being read properly by biometric readers, and possibly be denied access to the health service, local libraries and all the other public services that the Government seem to want to provide?

John Gummer: My hon. and learned Friend pointed out that people would have to travel long distances. I do not know whether he has noticed the huge queues outside the American embassy, consisting of people trying to obtain visas. It is not just a question of travelling; it is a question of the general bureaucratic incompetence of any organisation that seeks to process a large number of people. Given that the United States seems to think it entirely possible to behave in what I consider an outrageous way to British citizens, and given the quality of the Bill, I see no reason to expect the British Government to behave better to their own citizens.

Edward Garnier: I regret to say that my right hon. Friend is entirely correct. Nothing that I learnt from the Government in Committeedespite the admirable human qualities of the two Ministers who had the misfortune of conducting the Billnothing that I learnt on Second Reading, and nothing that I learnt from the Government's utterances during the recess persuaded me to take any view other than that expressed by my right hon. Friend. We are dealing with a Government who are in a total muddle, and have absolutely no idea of the Bill's implications. If they do know, they do not seem to want to care.
	The irony is reinforced by the time limit, but that does not apply just to this debate. On 12 July, in Committeeas can be seen in column 405 of the record the Under-Secretary of State attempted to explain his weary way out of clauses 5, 6 and 7, but was cut off in mid-sentence because the knife imposed by his own Government came down and chopped off his tongue. How can we take seriously legislation that not even the Government gave themselves time to explain? Even they did not give themselves time to respond to the arguments advanced by the Opposition parties. The whole thing would be utterly absurd if it were not so Kafkaesque.
	Our amendments, Nos. 13 and 14, seek to delete clauses 6 and 7. I understand the parliamentary arithmetic, and I know that it is highly unlikely that the Bill, if it secures Royal Assent, will be minus those clauses. However, the amendments give us the opportunity to express a view, which I hope is antithetic to the Government's wishes, about the huge powers that the Secretary of State is takinghuge powers wrapped up in statutory instruments that we have yet to see; huge powers to impose what the Minister politely calls civil penalties. That is a fine in my language and, I suspect, in yours, Mr. Deputy Speaker; and it is a fine in the language of the good men and women of our country who will be the victims, or the recipients, of the Bill.

Adam Afriyie: I visited South Africa recently. I believe that the riots and rebellions there were sparked off partly by the draconian penalties for not carrying or possessing identity cards. I fear that that may be a consequence of measures of this kind in the long term.

Edward Garnier: I quite agree. The pass system in apartheid South Africa was offensive to all civilised people. It does the Government some credit that the despicable collection of clauses in the Bill does notat least, yetinclude a requirement for you and me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to carry identity cards. It will, however, become increasingly a matter of practice and a matter of compulsionif not as a result of legislation, because people will be stopped and searched in the streets, and required to show their identity cards when entering the hospital, the library and, I gather, even the video store. The penalties to which my hon. Friend refers are hugely draconian.

Robert Smith: Given the national database, will we not be walking identity cards once the system becomes compulsory, regardless of whether we carry a piece of paper? Our biometrics can be measured by any machine that we come across, or any machine used by officialdom to test us. People may think that they are not being forced to carry identity cards, but they will be forced to have their identities verified by the state if the system becomes compulsory.

Edward Garnier: The hon. Gentleman has made a couple of good points, directly and by implication.
	The identity card is, in a sense, just a front. It is the human barcode that will allow the authoritiesthe state, or whoever possesses the readersto delve into the bucket of information about us that will be established by the Bill. This should more properly be called the national identity register Bill, because that is where the real civil-liberties implications lie. I accept that the Bill does not at presentas far as we can tellmake carrying an identity card compulsory, but I have little doubt that in due course we shall be toldif not by this Minister, by anotherthat we will find that much more convenient. Of course we cannot tell for certain, because we have not seen the 61 statutory instruments, still less the penal code referred to in clause 36.
	I know that many Members want to speak, and that we must stop debating these important amendments at 7.15 pm. Let me say, however, that I am deeply concerned about the fact that we may well be passing into legislation the penal regime in clause 6 that would enable the Secretary of State, or those who work for him, to impose fines of up to 2,500 without our having seen the code of practice. I am also deeply concerned about the fact that under clause 7 the Secretary of State is doing his best, but not doing well enough, to give us mechanisms to allow parliamentary oversight over massive but as yet unseen powers.
	On Second Reading and, frequently, in Committee, I described the Bill as no more than a Christmas tree on which the Secretary of State would hang, as he saw fit, statutory instruments, powers and so on. It would be, as someone else observed, the victim of creeping conduct by the Government. I urge all Members with any understanding of what the Government are capable of doing to resist the Bill. I accept that it contains some measures that are not as damaging to the citizen, but for the moment the Government have failed to discharge the burden of proof. I urge Members to bear in mind what was said by the hon. Member for Walthamstow, and I trust that the mood of the House will permit his amendment and others to be passed.

Andrew Love: What is the mood of Her Majesty's loyal Opposition toward amendment No. 5?

Edward Garnier: We shall support it.
	I hope that others will deal with this Bill as vigorously as the hon. Member for Walthamstow has.

Tim Farron: I will be brief. The Government have sought to curtail this debate and I do not want to aid or abet them. The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) pointed out the serious concerns that exist about the effective compulsion in which the introduction of the identity card system and the attendant database will result. Given that possession of an ID card is linked so closely to entitlement to basic services such as housing, health, use of libraries and education, we are indeed, in effect, talking about compulsion.
	The distance that people live from registration centresone of the issues with which our amendments dealis crucial to take-up of the ID card and, therefore, to entitlement to those basic services. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) referred to the various rural areas in which distance from a registration centre will be crucial to take-up. [Interruption.] He could indeed have mentioned rural and isolated areas such as those in Bournemouth and Cambridge, along with those in my own constituency. I would not myself wish to opt for take-up at the so-called voluntary stage, given that the Government are effectively making possession of an ID card compulsory by linking access to basic services

Roberta Blackman-Woods: Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the Government have given a commitment to establishing a number of centres throughout the countryperhaps 70to ensure that people do not have to travel too far?

Tim Farron: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her observation, but she might want to consider that 70 is a very small number, given the large rural areas that exist in this country. If we divide the population coverage by that number of centres, it is clear that accessing them will be very difficult. Such a number certainly does not meet the requirements that are met by the 20-mile distance limit that we are seeking to include in the Bill.

Alan Reid: Of course, it is a question not only of distance but of the ability to get to a registration centre. The islanders of Colonsay have only three boats a week to the mainland, and if there are to be only 70 registration centres, it will take them at least three days to get to a centre and back again. If the date specified by the Secretary of State happens to fall on a Friday, they will have to leave home on a Wednesday and will get back the following Monday. That is ridiculous. The registration facilities must go to the people, not the other way round. Such facilities must go to the islands.

Tim Farron: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point, which highlights one of the many other ways in which the 5 billion that will be spent on the ID card system could be better spent. There are great problems with the public transport services in rural areas such as mine. They are much more expensive, and much less available and convenient, than they should be, so access to registration centres will be rendered even more difficult.
	Our desire to limit the distance between the individual and the registration centre highlights a general problem throughout the country, even in urban areas: lack of take-up of the ID card and, therefore, of the services to which people are entitled.

Adam Afriyie: For the many elderly and disabled people on means-tested benefits, registering for the ID card will be almost compulsory. Does the hon. Gentleman feel comfortable with the idea of living in a society in which we wheel out the elderly, infirm and disabled to Government processing centres to have their retinas scanned and their fingerprints taken?

Tim Farron: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I feel in no way comfortable with the idea of living in such a society. He has moved us on to the important issue of people becoming excluded from basic services not because they live in rural or isolated areas, but for other reasons. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough referred earlier to the 20 per cent. of people who will never have a passport. Perhaps even more worrying and illuminating is the significant proportion of people who are not, and are never likely to be, on any electoral roll, and who effectively duck out of society. Some may say that they should not exclude themselves in that way, but we are talking about a group of people consisting predominantly of Travellers, young people, elderly people living in isolated rural areas, and people with mental health difficulties. They will exclude themselves from registration and will, therefore, effectively become non-persons. That should worry us all.
	Amendments Nos. 36 and 37 seek to remove the requirement to submit to the gathering of biometric data, which we object to on the ground of efficacy. We simply do not believe that such a provision will work. The Government are surely aware of evidence showing that where registration and the checking and gathering of data is automated, people can, for example, use false contact lenses to give an erroneous retinal scan. The Government will say that they can get round that problem by carrying out individual checks of everybody who comes forward for examination. However, such an incredibly labour-intensive exercise would vastly increase the Bill's associated costs, beyond even the estimates of independent assessors who have published data on this subject.
	I also object to the provision because it allows the Government to overplay the reliability of this scheme. A perverse consequence of such overplaying is that it will play into the hands of the criminal. It will increase the currency and likelihood of fraud, create incentives for committing fraud and increase the premium on counterfeiting. My fundamental objection to the provision, however, is that it is illiberal, because I am one of those who take the view that something that is illiberal is intrinsically bad.
	Were you to visit the National Liberal Club, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you would see memorials to the great Liberal heroes of yesteryear, such as Gladstone and Lloyd George. You would also be interested to see a plaque commemorating one Clarence Harry Willcock, who was a Liberal party member in 1950an act of heroism in its own right. He is famous because it was he who precipitated the abolition of the previous ID card scheme. In 1952, Winston Churchill abolished that scheme largely because of a case brought against Mr. Willcock. He was asked by a member of the constabulary to show his ID card and despite possessing it, he refused to do so because, he said, I am a Liberal and I am against this sort of thing. Absolutely right. [Interruption.] I am a Liberal and I am against this sort of thing. I suppose that the Conservatives might say, We are Conservatives and we are in favour of this sort of thing, but we've checked the opinion polls and so we're voting with the Liberal Democrats. However, I digress.
	Fundamentally, we oppose this provision because as we all know, Members of this House cannot and should not bind their successors. In passing the Bill and allowing this provision to remain unamended, we are providing the apparatus for authoritarianism. I ask Labour Members to imagine that in response to the IRA threat of the 1970s, the previous Labour Government successfully introduced this Billthat James Callaghan stood before the House and carried it through. Would Labour Members consider the possibility of what might have happened after 1979 if this sort of legislation fell into the hands of Margaret Thatcher? What might the unintended consequences have been? Many of you were involved in anti-nuclear protests and industrial relations disputes of the 1980s, particularly the miners' strike. Would you like to suppose for one nightmarish moment what this Bill in their hands would have meant for you?

David Winnick: I would not disagree with the hon. Gentleman, but I want to comment on his point about heroes. Does he consider that the great Liberal heroes, Asquith and Lloyd George, were right to refuse to grant the vote to women for years on end? Women only achieved the vote in 1918.

Tim Farron: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution and I will check the history later with my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (David Howarth). What I can tell you is that this House cannot bind its successors

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman persists in using the term you, but he must use the correct parliamentary language when addressing fellow Members.

Tim Farron: My sincere apologies, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	The hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) is right to make that point, but just as the House cannot bind its successors, neither can the Liberals of yesteryear. All I am asking is for Labour Members to be true to themselves and say, We are Labour and we are against this sort of measure.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: I should like to spend a short time discussing the important amendment No. 5, which deals with the central vice and evil of the Billcompulsion. There is no point debating the Bill without debating the issue of compulsion. It is in the Bill: it can be made law by secondary legislation and it can be introduced into law by various crafty devices that are already set out in the provisions. The British people have no idea what they will be required to do under the Bill if it becomes law. If they did, there would be no question of any opinion poll saying anything other than that they were totally, or nearly totally, against it. In the short time available, I want to put into historical context the issues raised by both Front-Bench spokesmen.
	Not since the Domesday book in 1068 have we seen anything like it. That was a system of registration put into effect by the Normansor the new Normans, as I suspect they were known at the time. Not since then have the British people been required to attend, with their families, at a certain place at a certain time in order to have their heads measured and the colours of their eyes taken. To be fair, under the present Bill, people will not have to declare the number of livestock that they possess or the items of clothing that they wear. However, we should not get too excited, because under the terms of the secondary legislation, people could be forced to give any other information that the Secretary of State prescribes.
	I have to say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that there are many people in my constituency who simply will not do this. They will not do itfull stop. Some may do it and there are doubtless some that conform to the model citizen that new Labour imagines in the south-east of England. However, a very large numberI can see them in my mind's eye as I speakfind it difficult enough to go 100 yd down the street to exercise their right to vote and they simply will not comply with the Bill under any circumstances. Social stress will be the result.
	I can picture one of my constituents talking to me in my surgery, saying, I have to go to Maidstone to have my head measured. I will reply, Yes, you have and he will say, And she has to have her head measured as well. I will say, Yes, indeed. Pointing to his adolescent offspring, he will say, They have to have their heads measured as well and I will confirm that that is absolutely right. He will then say, Why did you vote for this Bill? I will then experience the glory of being able to say that I did not vote for it and that I voted against it at every conceivable opportunity. My constituent will want to know what will happen if they all refuse to have their heads measured. I will tell him that he will not be able to go to the public library, which will not upset him very much, but there will be other things that he will be unable to do.

Andrew Love: I am following my hon. and learned Friend's argument closely. Does he agree that the most insidious aspect of what he is discussing is that someone will have to decide whether to fine or even imprison that person? That will be the acid test, but does he agree that that is a test too far for a Labour Government?

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Yes, indeed. I am most grateful to my hon. Friend, as I was going to become a little more serious and make precisely that point. I would have to tell my constituent that he could be fined or sent to prison, at which point I would be looked at with complete disbeliefthat in the 21st century we have passed a law that requires our citizens to comply on pain of fine or imprisonment. I would also point out that this is not even the worst part of the Bill, but an exemplification of what lies behind it. I would have to point out that when they have had their heads measured and their eyes photographed, they will then form part of a massive registration process, to which they have no access or control. I will explain that that was why I voted against the Bill.

Martin Salter: I always enjoy hearing my hon. and learned Friend's oratory, but to develop his theme of explaining his glorious vote against the Bill to his constituents, did he make it clear to them at the electionI have seen some of his election publicity and it was very goodthat, although he was standing on the Labour party manifesto, which included a pledge to introduce this Bill, he was personally opposed to it and would vote against it?

Robert Marshall-Andrews: I am pleased to answer that question. The answer is yes, I did. Neither was it the only part of the Labour manifesto that I told my constituents I was not standing on[Interruption.] I had pared it down quite thin by the end of the campaign. What I will be able to say to my constituentsit may mean that I will get re-elected, despite the fact that I will be standing on a Labour ticketis that I voted against what I considered to be the most illiberal piece of legislation that the House has been asked to pass for half a century and quite possiblypace the Bill on terrorisminto the foreseeable future. I strongly urge hon. Members to join me in the Lobby tonight in order to bring to an end this attempt to visit such illiberalism on our people.

Richard Shepherd: The House owes a debt of gratitude to the mover of amendment No. 5. The whole issue is about liberty. It is about our liberty and the liberty of those we represent. The Bill makes it quite clear that, at the designation of the Secretary of State, an application for something that we have taken for granted all our livesthe right to apply for a passport, to access our national health service or whatever comes to the Secretary of State's mindwill be dependent on showing our subservience to the state. In providing the state with one coherent datum on our whole identity, we are giving it the power to follow us wherever we go. That is what the Bill is about and why it constitutes a deep and savage attack on what this country has stood and fought for across the centuries.
	We did not acquire our liberty lightly. Our liberty is not just a thousand years old. It was through the work and struggle of people across this nation that the long march of everyman secured for us our relationship to the state. It is our state, but the Bill and its clauses say otherwise. The Bill says no. The Bill says otherwise: that the state will measure, identify and control all our citizens for purposes that are lost in the Bill, but which can be designated by the Secretary of State by orders in what is essentially a dreadful enabling Bill.
	This is about liberty. A.C. Grayling wrote a pamphlet for Liberty and reminded us of four lines from Kipling, which come via a powerful essay once read by E.M. Forster against the Sedition Act. It says
	He shall mark our goings, question whence we came,
	Set his guards about us, as in Freedom's name
	He shall peep and mutter; and the night shall bring
	Watchers 'neath our window, lest we mock the King.
	That is what the Government have sought throughout their history. We have had more benighted legislation to measure, to circumscribe and to deny freedom without justification, other than it may or it possibly could. The Bill is a monument to the incapacity of the Government to make our existing laws and services work and, to that extent, it is flummery, but it is flummery that strikes deep into the English, the Scots, the Welsh and the Irishall the people who make up this nation's sense of liberty.

Martin Linton: We have heard a lot of rhetoric tonight and we can congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard). His amendment would change only one word, but it is the crucial word of the Bill. I happen to take the opposite view to his, but I recognise that this is the central part of the Bill.
	Let me take my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow back to the beginning of the process. We have had several White Papers, the first of which, issued by the Home Office, distinguished between different possible schemes: a voluntary scheme; a scheme called at that stage a universal scheme, under which the card would have to be held by everybody; and a compulsory scheme, under which everyone would have to carry the card. From the start, the last option was excluded and the Government looked at either a voluntary scheme or a universal scheme, which we would now call compulsory: compulsory to have and not to carry.
	One of the crucial arguments came from the opponents of ID cards, who said that any such scheme would have to become compulsory, or it would be useless. There was no point in discussing the subject on the basis of a voluntary scheme, which would not work and would not fulfil the most fundamental objectives. In the response to the White Paper, it was recognised by both sides that there was no point in proceeding with an ID scheme if it were to be purely voluntary.
	That emphasises something that my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow must know, as he and his colleagues advanced the argument at that stage. If the amendment were passed, it would be a wrecking amendment and would cut out the heart of the Bill. Anyone with an open mind who is listening to what my hon. Friend says about the amendment must bear in mind the fact that the purpose of the amendment is to disable the entire Bill and to make it of no value.
	At the end of the day, we must look at the fundamental point of the Billthat we should have a list of names of all the people in this country. We already have many lists of names: a national insurance list of about 40 million names; the Inland Revenue list containing a similar number; the Passport Agency list of 38 million people; and the council tax registers, which contain a similar number. The electoral register contains 40 million people's names. The only difference between the national identity register and all these lists is that the national identity list will be correct.
	For example, the national insurance register has 75 million names on it, so clearly it cannot be correct. We cannot be sure that all the other lists are correct. The advantage of the national identity register is that we would use modern technology to ensure that the list that we have of people in this country is correct. Biometric technology will enable us to do that for the first time in our history.

Adam Afriyie: It seems to me that it will be compulsory to carry the ID card. If an ID card is based on biometricsretinal scans and fingerprintsone constantly carries those and therefore one will be carrying an ID card. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?

Martin Linton: The point is not whether we have separate cards, but whether we have the register, which will contain simply the details of name, address and date of birth, as all other registers try to do. But the register would be foolproof, to a far greater extent, against fraud and falsehood.

Several hon. Members: rose

Martin Linton: As I have come to the crucial point, many people want me to give way. However, there are many others who want to get into the debate and I would rather defer to them.
	The crucial part is that we have heard a lot of rhetoric. We have heard mention of South Africa and Nazi Germany and the word Kafkaesque, but none of those points is relevant.

Edward Garnier: The hon. Gentleman is misleading himself, perhaps because he has not got as far as page 40 of the Bill. Will he please look at schedule 1, where he will see eight paragraphs specifying the information that will be on the register? It is not just the four pieces of information that he mentioned.

Martin Linton: It is actually 56, but it boils down to identity information.

Several hon. Members: rose

Martin Linton: I will not give way again, because others want to get into the debate.
	Opponents of the Bill should have the honesty to accept that the fundamental point is that we will have an accurate register that will be of enormous assistance to us as individuals, as well as to the Government. We have heard a lot of rhetoric, but people should accept that this is the absolutely crucial part of the Bill.

Tony McNulty: We need to start with those matters on which we all apparently agree, certainly in terms of official party positions. As I understand italthough one would not have thought it, given some of the contributionsall parties agree on biometric passports. That is on the record. One cannot have biometric passports without the infrastructure we are talking about bringing in by 2008. We simply cannot organise biometric[Interruption.] Infrastructure was the word. The hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) should calm down and listen. He may have been excited by the fourth-form contribution of his hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron); I certainly was not.
	By infrastructure, I mean contact centres and how we capture biometrics. Everyone should agree as a starting point that that is necessary for the biometric passports on which we all agree. The argument is not about how many centres there should be; 70 may be enough with mobile facilities, but it may not be enough. That is a matter of detail that, of course, needs discussion in terms of the roll-out of biometric passports, which will happen whatever happens to the Bill tonight. That is a position with which every party in the Chamber agrees.
	The argument, put quite fairly by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard), is about the link beyond that to ID cards. My hon. Friend makes a perfectly fair argument, one made in Committee and before. I am not going to say that this is a wrecking amendment, because such an amendment would not be selected for debate, as it would not be in order. However, unpicking the ID card from the passport would drive a coach and horses, to coin a phrase, through the entire structure of the system that we aim to produce. I freely accept that that may be what my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow is seeking to do, but we must not run away with the notion that we will not have biometrics if this Bill fails. The question of whether 70 contact centres will be sufficient to do the necessary biometric work will not go away, as all parties agree with biometric passports.
	All the Government are saying is that the process should be phased in, rather than introduced according to the big bang model. Here is another little secret: I am not over-enamoured of the success achieved by huge Government IT procurement projects introduced on the big bang model. I place it on record that, in the recent past and under both parties, the litany of failure is far too replete. The responsibility is not specific to one party, and that is why it would be foolish to introduce this process according to the big bang model.
	We are not saying that we can go from what we have now to a database covering 60-odd million people overnight, hoping and praying that the IT and the procurement will work and that everything will be successful. We have learned the lessons of the past, and this project has to be rolled out on a phased basis.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow and I disagree, but my contention is that the two processes involvedin securing the biometric passport from 2008, and in registering people on the database and securing the ID cardare virtually the same. Given the facility and proximity of those two processes, it would not be fair to ask people to submit information in respect of passports and then do the same thing again some way down the line.

Julia Goldsworthy: On that point, will the Minister publish the gateway reviews that have been undertaken in respect of the IT procurement for this project?

Tony McNulty: My right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), who is Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, is not in the Chamber at present, but he has asked a similar question. I told him that we shall provide that gateway information, to the extent that we are able. Even the most cynical of hon. Members will accept that there might be degrees of confidentiality in the process

Julia Goldsworthy: indicated dissent.

Tony McNulty: The hon. Lady shakes her head, but she is wrong to do so. I gave the Chair of the Select Committee that undertaking, and I give it again.

Lynne Jones: Given what happened with the Child Support Agency or the tax credit systems, have not the Government learned the problems that arise when a database constantly changes? The databases that work successfully are fairly static, and other countries are not establishing the same huge database as is proposed here. They can have biometric passports and identity cards that conform to international standards, but without that huge database.

Tony McNulty: I certainly accept what my hon. Friend says about static as opposed to ever changing databases. She makes an entirely fair point. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) offered a lot of comedy about the Domesday book, but it is not a fair interpretation of the Bill to say that the Secretary of State can change anything in the database that he likes, and insert whatever he wants to. That is not the case. We want people to be able to access secure websites, by means of their PIN number, so that they can adjust and change data on the register.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Given what he has just said, will the Minister tell me what the following passage means? Clause 5(5)(d) states that an individual may be required
	otherwise to provide such information as may be required by the Secretary of State.

Tony McNulty: My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway does not mention the three other paragraphs of clause 5(5), which set out the belt and braces details of what may be required of an individual before subsection (5)(d) is activated. I also refer him to schedule 1, which lists all the items that may be recorded in an individual's entry in the register, and to the statutory purposes of the legislation as set out in clause 1. The Bill states, in terms, that the imposition of anything outside those stipulations would require my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to return to the House for approval, so the situation is not quite as my hon. and learned Friend suggests.
	Finally, it is entirely wrong

It being quarter past Seven o'clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker put the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [this day].
	The House divided: Ayes 278, Noes 310.

Question accordingly negatived.
	It being after quarter past Seven o'clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker then proceeded to put forthwith the Question to be disposed of at that hour.

Clause 8
	  
	Issue etc. of ID Cards

Amendment made: No. 2, in page 7, line 11 [Clause 8], leave out 'one or'.[Mr. Heppell.]

Patrick Mercer: I beg to move amendment No. 7, in clause 8, page 7, line 20, after 'individual', insert
	'(aa)   must be free of charge;'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 19, in clause 37, page 31, line 26, leave out paragraph (c).

Patrick Mercer: This simple amendment provides that an identity card issued to an individual must be free of charge. Ministers will not be surprised by the amendment, because we have already debated the point in Committee and will no doubt talk further about it tonight. The cost of the card is one of the most crucial elements of our debate. If we believe that the card is right and will, in due course, have to be possessed, if not carried, by everybody in the country, how on earth can we make the sort of charges for it that we have heard about in the past few months?
	The identity card will come in a package with the passport. I shall come to the combined cost of the card and passport in a moment, but we have heard already that some 20 per cent. of the population never need to have a passport. How much does the Minister propose to charge those who do not want passports, only cards? It is the nation's job to support its citizens' travel abroad, but why should a fee be charged for ID cards?
	The possible costs cited vary. The Identity Project states:
	The Government originally asserted that the cost of the passport/ID card package, that is valid for 10 years, would be 85, but six months later this increased to 93.
	In Committee, the Minister was chary of allocating a cost to the card. He skirted around questions about how much the card alone would be and whether it would be possible to issue a card without a passport. He gave us the tantalising figure for the cost of the passport of some 63. By a simple process of subtraction, the card would therefore cost about 30, but the Minister was hesitant about agreeing to that sum. However, now we hear from the Government that the figure is about right. I would be grateful if the Minister explained why he was so reluctant to talk about the cost of the card alone.
	The costs of the card alone will not be confined to compiling the register and then issuing the cards, with all the associated equipment necessary. Some reference has already been made to the article in The Scotsman, which claims that ID cards will lead to massive fraud. It states:
	Jerry Fishenden, the national technology officer for Microsoft, says the proposal to place 'biometrics'or personal identifiers such as fingerprintson a central database could perpetuate the 'very problem the system was intended to prevent'. He says Ministers 'should not be building systems that allow hackers to mine information so easily'.
	As we asked about an earlier amendment, if rubbish is put in, what rubbish will come out? If the scheme will be wide open to fraud, as the article suggests, how will we offset the costs? Will a margin be included in the charge for ID cards and passports?

Nick Palmer: The hon. Gentleman is sliding back and forth between the issues of cost and charge. The amendment relates to the charge the user will pay for the card to be issued. It is reasonable also to discuss the cost to the country, but that is not the subject of the amendment.

Patrick Mercer: As always, I am grateful to my fellow Nottinghamshire Member of Parliament for his observations. If he will allow me to develop my argument, I am sure that he will receive full satisfaction[Interruption.] Yes, for less than 30, I expect.
	I would be interested in the Minister's view on how fraud will be offset in the charge for issuing cards. The Identity Project goes on at length about the cost projections for the cardwhat it will cost individuals, and what it will cost the nation. It talks of the costs of issuing cards over a 10-year period, based on passport service figures; of card readers for the public sector, as envisaged in the Bill; of the national identity register; of the total cost of the national identity register infrastructure; of managing the national identity system; and of specific other staff costs over a 10-year period. The lowest estimate in the report is more than 10 billion. I shall not exacerbate the situation by mentioning the higher costs, because they are difficult to quantify, but 10 billion is already a massive sum. How can the Minister expect the nation, and the individual, to foot the cost for the register and the card?

Mark Oaten: The hon. Gentleman is talking about future, projected costs, but I wonder how much the Government have already spent on this project.

Patrick Mercer: As usual, the hon. Gentleman makes a useful and helpful intervention. Perhaps the Minister would be kind enough to outline exactly how much this scheme has already cost us, even before it has been approved by Parliament. How much of the national treasure has been invested in something that will I hopelead nowhere?
	What will be the cost to the individual? If the Minister tells us that the package comes to just under 100, will everyone have to pay that? Are those who are on benefits likely to be asked for the same sum? If so, where will that money come from? How will they pay? Is it more likely, as I suspect, that those who are better off will end up being asked to subsidise those who cannot afford either passport or card? I should be very grateful to the Minister if he made it clear to me how that lies.
	I appreciate the point made by the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer), but I cannot close on the amendment without mentioning opportunity cost. In my view, even I were persuaded of the need for both a register and an identity card, I would question very carefully whether we are putting those massive sumsmost modestly assessed at 10 billion and probably much moreinto the correct place if we want to stop the sort of ills that we have heard about, not least of which is terrorism, a subject in which I clearly have a great interest. Is the money being spent in the most efficacious fashion? Is it likely that a register and a card will have the effect that we hope to achieve? I suggest that the opportunity cost of the register and the card is absolutely out of proportion to the perceived benefits that either or both might deliver.

David Drew: The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear that I am very keen to know what the amendment would cost. He suggests that the Government will charge 30, but has he calculated what the cost would be if the card were given free to whoever wanted it? What does he imagine the overall cost would be?

Patrick Mercer: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will not surprised if I say that I have done no such calculation. As far as I am concerned, the scheme is not a starter. I have moved the amendment simply to challenge the Government and to make them explain how they can request such sums. I believe that if these cards are issuedif we ever get to that dreadful and parlous statethey should be free to those who will be forced, first, to hide them in the bottom drawer of their wardrobes and, in due course, to carry them.

John Denham: I have not spoken in the debates so far today, and this seems the most appropriate debate in which to make a few comments about the costs of the scheme and its procurement because those factors directly reflect the issue raised by the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer). I strongly support ID cardsmy Select Committee produced a report on them a year agobut believe that costs must be contained as much as possible and that we must procure effectively.
	On the issue discussed in the amendment, the Government's approach is okay. In practice, despite the blood-curdling rhetoric of an earlier debate in which reference was made to the prospect of people being frog-marched 80 miles to have their heads measured and then charged 100 quid for the privilege, a certain amount of sheer politics rather determines that that is not likely to take place. So making provision for a charge is reasonable, but it is important that the overall cost of the scheme is contained. I have concerns about some elements of the approach that the Government are taking to the procurement of the scheme. Those issues were raised by the Home Affairs Committee well over a year ago, and I must tell my hon. Friend the Minister that progress has been a little disappointing until now. I should like to reinforce a few of those points.
	First, there are some elements in the design of the scheme that I suspect will not turn out to be cost-effective. Some of those elements were referred to earlier. In particular, the cost benefit of including addresses in the scheme may well turn out not to be that good. It is an irony that one of the advantages of moving to a biometric national identity register is that someone's address becomes a less important part of their identity than in the current system, where their address is an important statement about who they are and how to prove who they are. The ability to strip out of the system the cost of constant re-registration in cities such as mine where 25 per cent. of the population move every year would be of enormous benefit. The Minister will need to return to that issue in practice. That does not necessarily affect the detail of the legislation, but it is an important issue.
	The second issue relates to procurement. Biometrics were discussed earlier this evening. One of the recommendations made by the Home Affairs Committee more than a year ago was that Sir David King, the chief scientific officer, should be invited to oversee and judge the preparedness of biometrics. I was pleased that that recommendation was accepted by the Government a year ago. However, a year later, the committee that Sir David was to be invited to lead has not yet met. Some of the problems that the Government are having with the debate about systemsthose that suggest that wrinkled, bald-headed men have their faces on upside down and all the other issues that we have heard about todaywould be put on one side if we had the simple assurance that the chief scientific officer was going to do what the Select Committee recommended a year ago and give the green light, or the red light, to the preparedness of the technology. That would be an enormously important step. The Government agreed to it in principle more than a year ago, but no action has yet been taken. That is a shame.

Edward Garnier: The right hon. Gentleman may be further concerned to hear that, before we broke for the recess in July, I tabled 10 or 12 written parliamentary questions to a number of Departments of State to find out what steps they had taken to prepare for the national register and the identity card system. Not one of them, not even the Home Office, was able to say that it had done anything meaningful to prepare for the scheme. The Treasury, the Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Defence, the Northern Ireland Officenone of them had done anything sensible to meet the right hon. Gentleman's Committee's concerns.

John Denham: That is an interesting point. Although the Select Committee supported the ID card scheme, one of its recommendations was that it felt to us a year and a half ago as though this was a Home Office scheme that the rest of Government was watchingthose were not our exact words, but that was the sense of themrather than a cross-Government scheme to which the whole of the Government were committed. I fear that what the hon. and learned Gentleman recounts rather supports that view. Those are not reasons to vote against the Billwe need the schemebut it is right to put down warnings that, unless those issues are addressed, the scheme may well not be successful.

Mark Todd: Does my right hon. Friend agree that a cultural barrier lies in front of the scheme, to which he has just alluded? All Departments must be involved in delivering savings and process changes to make the collection of national identities work for them. Yet they must also step back in the management of the project and allow someone to deliver it without their direct control. That presents a management conundrum, which I admit, as someone who has had to manage projects, would be scary in the extreme.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the right hon. Gentleman responds to that intervention, I remind him and the House that these amendments relate to what the public must pay for the cards. The cost of producing them is therefore irrelevant, so a wide-ranging debate on that aspect is not acceptable. The debate is specifically about what people must pay for the cards.

John Denham: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for your advice and tolerance up to this point. However, the point I wish to make about procurement is now directly related to the cost of the overall scheme and therefore the cost that the public are likely to have to bear, be it for a free-standing card or for a passport-plus in the form that 80 per cent. or so of the population will have.
	There seems to be a lack of willingness in the Home Office at the moment to adopt what is generally called an open process to procurement. That does not involve openness about whether we are advertising according to the normal European procurement processes and so on. There are essentially two approaches to procurement that will have a big effect on the design and cost of the scheme. The first is one where, having defined the broad outcomes and objectives of the scheme, the Government tender for one or more suppliers to provide a black boxcomputer software or a certain type of cardthat will deliver what they want. The second approach is one where all the major issues about the design of the software, the structure of the identity register, the choice of card and the choice of different types of chip on the card are made publicly available and there is the widest technical and scientific scrutiny.
	Traditional Government procurement has taken the view that the savings in cost achieved by the black-box type of procurement outweigh the advantages of a wider scrutiny of the proposals. Having looked at procurement around the world, the Select Committee came to the opposite view: the most open technical procurement, with the best scrutiny, was most likely to deliver systems that worked at the lowest possible cost.

Lynne Jones: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government should not go ahead with procuring the system without having conducted, or having had conducted, an independent large-scale study to ensure that the necessary error rates can be achieved on a population of 60 million people?

John Denham: rose

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is off-beam again. The right hon. Gentleman must address his remarks to the amendments before the House and that intervention was not in order.

John Denham: I shall not answer the question, Mr. Deputy Speaker, although I was tempted to do so.

Andrew Love: rose

John Denham: I shall give way to my hon. Friend, but if he could help me to remain in order I should be grateful.

Andrew Love: The Government have commissioned a study by KPMG, which looks at the risks to the system and, I understand, includes costs. However, they have said that due to commercial confidentiality they can release only part of that information. Is my right hon. Friend, like me, somewhat concerned about that, and is not it important that we be as open as possible about the system if we are to achieve the ends that he wants?

John Denham: I have much sympathy for what my hon. Friend says. It seems to me that we are locking commercial confidentiality into the procurement process far too early, when many of the major technical design issues have not been solved. The likelihood, therefore, is that we shall end up paying more than we need to for the final product because we have not had appropriate scrutiny of what is being purchased. That, I can reassure you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will impact directly on the cost that the public may have to pay for the card.

Alistair Carmichael: It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham). He may have pushed the boundaries of what was in order, but he made a highly significant contribution, bringing as he did an almost unique insight into Home Office procurement processes. That is indicative of the sort of debate that we need in the House in relation to identity cards, but are unfortunately denied due to the nature of the Bill, which, as has already been observed, is an enabling measure.
	The right hon. Gentleman prefaced his remarks by saying that he was a supporter of identity cards. I wonder what someone reading his contribution would think that the opponents were saying if that was a Government supporter's analysis of the case. If there was a flaw in his argument, it was that his message seemed to be that we should identify all the difficulties but pass the Bill anyway. That is entirely the wrong way of going about things. The right hon. Gentleman is inviting us to give a blank cheque, which will ultimately be substantial, for something whose efficacy is by no means guaranteed.
	I want to say a few words about the amendments. This is one of the occasions when I feel that I may have fallen through the looking-glass. I find myself supporting a Conservative amendment that proposes a free universal provision, in the teeth of opposition from a Labour Government. However there is some merit in the Conservative proposal, as there is too in amendment No.19, which the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has yet to move. There will be a cost to us all, whether from those who have to get the card at a flat rate or through general taxation, which is a burden that falls on us all. Both the Conservatives and Government Back Benchers are offering the Government a way out.
	The Government are stumbling towards a new plasticised poll tax. It is worth recalling why the poll tax was unpopular. It was a flat-rate tax, which bore no relation to ability to pay. In that sense, it was regressive. What the Government are suggesting is, at the very least, a similar flat-rate levy. Much of the opposition to the poll tax was not from principle, although that was at the root of it; the serious opposition, at least in Scotland, arose from the recovery process. We saw local authority-instructed sheriff officers carrying out poindings and warrant sales for the recovery of a civil penalty, the poll tax. The Bill suggests that failure to pay the fee for an identity card will incur a civil penalty. We are presented with the spectacle that a Labour Government will be sending out sheriff officers to carry out poindings and warrant sales for the recovery of a civil penalty[Interruption.] The Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality says from a sedentary position that that is not true. Perhaps he can tell me on which point I am wrong. He is not going to do so.

John Penrose: On the point about a regressive charge, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is likely to fall most heavily on some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable members of the public? In my constituency, we have a large proportion of pensioners, who are often on fixed incomes. Many of them will find it extremely hard to pay that additional tax, struggling as they are already with a number of other cost increases.

Alistair Carmichael: That certainly appears to be the case. As with everything else to do with this cursed Bill, we do not know, because we do not yet have the detail of what the Government are proposing.
	The Bill will impose a penalty, which if it is to be meaningful must be recoverable and that can be done only by means of civil penalties.

Alex Salmond: After making a sedentary intervention, the Minister has disappeared from the Treasury Bench. He should not do so. What is his disagreement with the logic of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael)? Is it that people would not receive a card if they did not pay? If they do not pay, presumably the Government have some means of recovering the charge. The hon. Gentleman should pursue that point; he may have touched on a Government soft nerve.

Alistair Carmichael: I do not know whether it is soft, but it is certainly raw

Alex Salmond: The Minister is now getting advice.

Alistair Carmichael: The Minister should have no need of advice as I have already raised the point with him in Committee. Members from Scotland in particular will have memories of the political capital that they made in the 1980s and early 1990s from the poll tax and the poindings and warrant sales, which should give them pause to reflect before they go into the Lobby tonight, or on any other occasion.

David Hamilton: As someone who once had the sheriff's officers at his door, I can well remember that time. Furthermore, as someone who, albeit somewhat reluctantly, has supported the Government on some issues tonight, I will not be supporting them on payments for individuals. We should keep separate the arguments. I would accept the argument on cost, although we must challenge what the cost would be, taking on board the comments of the Select Committee mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), but what I will not acceptnor will a number of peopleis that the costs should be transferred to individuals who cannot pay them. If they are on income support or are among the millions of our low-paid workers, they should not have to pay under that system.

Alistair Carmichael: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that point. I would have expected him to take that position because I know his views on a range of similar issues. However, I fear that he may prove to be the exception rather the rule among his fellow Scottish Labour Members, but we shall see.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: I would not want the hon. Gentleman to think that Labour Members are not concerned about costs, especially costs to the individual, because we want them to be as low as possible. The Secretary of State has given us assurances that every effort will be made to keep the costs reasonable.

Alistair Carmichael: I do not doubt for a second that hon. Members on both sides of the House are worried about costs. I am worried that Labour Members' concern does not seem to extend to providing meaningful protection for those who simply will not be in a position to pay and will thus be heavily penalised due to the scheme.
	I am aware that time is short and that other hon. Members wish to speak. I thank the Conservatives and the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, who is yet to speak, for giving us the opportunity to discuss the matter on the Floor of the House. We have had a useful debate and if the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington is minded to press amendment No. 19 to a Division, I assure him that the Liberal Democrats will support him in the Lobby.

John McDonnell: I shall speak to amendment No. 19, and with your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall press it to a Division at a later stage.
	I come to the debate, as always, as a humble seeker of the truth. I am doing everything that I possibly can to ensure the swift and speedy passage of Government legislation, and I am supporting them by trying to ensure that whatever legislation is passed can be properly implemented.
	The problem on which hon. Members on both sides of the House are currently stumbling is that the Government clearly and correctly said from the beginning that they wanted to ensure that they budgeted for the scheme appropriately and set aside the required sums to introduce such a new mechanism for identifying individuals. They said that those sums should properly cover the costs and be effectively and efficiently spent, which I wholeheartedly support. When there was discussion and consultation on charges for ID cards themselves, the Government honestly said that they wanted to keep any charge to a minimum, yet ensure that it would cover the costs of implementing the scheme. That was why we reached the point in June during which it seemed almost as though negotiations were going on in the Chamber between Labour Back Benchers and Front Benchers about the breakdown of charges between the passport and ID-card elements of the scheme. We were told at that stage that the Home Secretary was looking at trying to keep the charge of the card down to 30.
	A 30 charge on top of the charge for a passportthat takes the charge to 93might well be reasonable for some people, but the figure is based on the Government's estimate of the costs of the scheme. The charge is designed to cover the costs, but what will happen if the costs have been underestimated? The Government estimated that the passport and ID scheme would cost 5.8 billion over 10 years, which was the basis on which we calculated a charge of 93. I must say that I could spend 5.8 billion on many more productive things than an ID card scheme, but let us put that principled argument on one side.
	The London School of Economics report that analysed the scheme, which has already been cited, gave its lowest estimate of the cost of the scheme as 10.6 billion. The median estimate was 14.5 billion and the highest estimate was 19.2 billion. If the Government wish to cover the cost of the scheme through charging, a cost that is anywhere near the LSE's predictions will mean that the charge for a card and passport will eventually rise to something like 200 to 300.

Lynne Jones: I share my hon. Friend's concern. Is he aware that the increase to the charge for a passport between this year and next will be 15.57, which will be set to take account of only minor changes: the facial biometric and the system of interviews? However, it is estimated that the charge will increase between 200607 and the full implementation of the scheme by only 5.07, although fingerprint and iris biometrics will be introduced and the changing database will be set up during that time. The Government's figures are intuitively unreliablecompare 5 for a massive change with 15 for a minor change.

John McDonnell: My hon. Friend's point, which was perfectly made, reinforces our worry about what the Government will do if the charge is to cover the cost and yet the cost escalates.
	The Home Secretary and the Government have quite properly given assurances that they will try to keep costs down, but I have sat in the Chamber listening to assurances before. When we considered the Bill that became the Terrorism Act 2000, the Home Secretaryhe was then a junior Home Office Ministerassured us that the measure would not be used against people who were peacefully picketing and demonstrating, but within three months it was. I have thus sat through debates when assurances have been made by Government Ministers that have then not been realised.
	I am worried about what will happen if there is a cost overrun after we have inflicted a mandatory charge on the general public. Who will cover the cost if the system does not work? What will happen if not only the initial procurement estimates are wrong, but the cost of the contract starts to overrun in the early stages? Will we give more assurances to the public that the charge will not rise and, if so, will the cost fall on general taxation? Alternatively, will a one-off levy be put on businesses or others?

Andrew Love: According to the press release that was released yesterday to indicate that the charge of a card to those who do not take a passport will be 30, the Home Office can absorb any costs entailed in the scheme. If costs go up, they will thus lie with the Home Office and the only way in which it will be able to recoup the money will be by increasing the charge for the identity card.

John McDonnell: That is one option. However, we are all aware of the stringency of the Treasury's activities across Government Departments, so the other option would be that the Home Office would have to swallow its own smoke by using its budget, which would lead to cuts in other services, such as probation, prisons and policing. If costs escalate, the options are to increase the charge for the cards, or to cut services in the Home Secretary's remit.
	It is argued that risks will be reduced because the scheme will be rolled out in phases, but that does not reassure me. It is estimated that the scheme will involve the biggest computer contract in western Europe for the past 20 years. A project on such a scale has great potential for problems and cost overruns. Reports by the Public Accounts Committee tell us time and again that 50 per cent. of the Government's computer projects have failed, experienced serious developmental and operational problems, or overrun on time scales, thus overrunning on costs. None of us will be reassured about the implementation of the programme through such a massive contract.

David Drew: I do not know whether my hon. Friend read the answer that I received last week to a parliamentary question. It said there are currently 300,000 cases of passport theft a year. We did not touch on this matter in Committee, so will the Minister tell us who will pay if people lose their ID cards, or their ID cards and their passports?

John McDonnell: If the Government maintain that the costs of the scheme must be covered by charges, the general public will pay. The hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) raised the issue of fraud. If it is as rampant in the use of ID cards as some people have suggested the public will be charged so that additional anti-fraud measures can be introduced. One criticism in the LSE report concerns the Government's inadequate attention to the danger of fraud deep within the system. In future, the Public Accounts Committee will have a field day with the scheme overall and specifically the massive computer project. The exercise will become part of the pantheon that includes the Millennium dome, the Dangerous Dogs Act and rail privatisation.

Mark Todd: They were a lot cheaper.

John McDonnell: Indeed. At the end of the day, they probably did not impose such a heavy charge on our constituents. Because the technology has not been tested the charges will go up. I am surprised that we have not built into the legislation further controls to prevent such increases.

Mark Todd: I shall focus on the KPMG report, which has not been fully disclosed but makes reference to a weakness in sensitivity analysis on costs in the project. While giving a generally supportive nod towards the methodology used for producing the Government's estimated costs it refers to the huge unknowns that drive many costs on a project of this scale and length. Does my hon. Friend accept that that is a concern?

John McDonnell: The KPMG report is concerned that the project is an enormous leap in the dark. There are worries about implementation, technology and staff capability in the different Departments that must handle ID cards and the passport system together.
	We are forcing the scheme on people, contrary to the Prime Minister's choice agenda. Many people will not wish to participate in it, and there will be refuseniks. If we hound them down resentments will build up. By introducing a charge rather than paying for the scheme through general taxation the burden will fall, as has been said, on those least able to pay. I have not heard any ministerial assurances about whether or not we will accommodate pensioners or people on benefits by ensuring that they will not have to pay. Perhaps there will be an additional one-off allowance for pensioners along with their Christmas bonus so that they can go and get their ID cards. However, there does not seem to have been any consideration of the cost burden that will fall on people who are least able to afford it.

Mark Todd: If I understand the Bill correctly there is an assumption that take-up will not be 100 per cent., so the Minister will have the discretion to write off charges for citizens who, for one reason or another, fail to take up the card. Does that not suggest a major weakness? If that is known beforehand, people who do not wish to take part in the project can opt out knowing that they do not have to pay.

John McDonnell: My hon. Friend has spotted an incentive in the Bill for people to go into hiding and to refuse to pay. I am more concerned, however, about people who will struggle to pay the initial charge. If the project goes wrong and costs increase the charge imposed will have to go up. As a result, those people will not be able to bear that burden. I agree that resentment will build up. This debate mirrors debates about the poll tax in that it has been said that the present proposed charge is much fairer as it is a one-off cost that people will not mind paying. I think that they will. What happens if they refuse to pay? Do we really wish to go through the experience that we are now having with council tax of imprisoning vicars? Will bailiffs turn up at people's doors to take them to court or take away their goods because they cannot pay or refuse to do so?
	The Government are digging themselves into a hole, so I shall offer them some friendly, comradely and constructive advice. To ease the passage of the Bill and make the process fairer it would be better to ensure that implementation costs are borne through progressive taxation. As a result, costs would not bear too heavily on those least able to afford them. That would prevent resentment at a one-off charge, especially if it increased beyond the 30 estimate as is inevitable if the cost of implementing the system rises. I urge the Government to reconsider their position. If they do not do so I wish to press my amendment to a vote. I repeat, however, that Ministers will live to regret association with the legislation. Apart from all the complications and the attack on civil liberties, what will stick in the public's mind is being forced to pay for something that they never chose to have.

Alex Salmond: If the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) presses his amendment to a vote, I shall follow him loyally into the Lobby.
	We should be grateful to the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) for giving a speech in favour of identity cards, as it has reinforced many Members' opposition to them. We should also be grateful to him for reminding us of cost implications in the key recommendations from the Select Committee that he ably chairs. He gave three examples of things with cost implications: first, frequent changes of address, which was one of the issues that felled the poll tax; secondly, to use shorthand, the lack of technology proofing, despite the Select Committee's recommendations; and, thirdly, procurement and its bearing on costs. I thank him for one of the most succinct and lucid examinations of procurement problems that we have heard.
	Given that the Select Committee identified three things that bear heavily on costs, I cannot believe that more than a year later, none of those things has been examined or dealt with properly. I have great regard and respect for the right hon. Gentleman, but his conclusion that the House of Commons should blunder on regardless, ignoring all the things that have not been done, the assurances that have not been given and the examination that has not been completed, is remarkable. Should we just cross our fingers and hope for the best?

John Denham: The vast majority of people who oppose the Bill would do so whether or not there were issues of cost. The House would make an historic mistake if it did not proceed with legislation that enables ID cards to come into force, because there is a compelling case for such cards. It is perfectly reasonable to pass the legislation, but it is also important that we make it clear to Ministers that there are concerns about procurement, which must be set right in the following months.

Alex Salmond: Someone with substantial parliamentary experience knows that the best way to ensure that such things are dealt with is to fire a shot, not just across the bows but below the water line, in the amendments. That would ensure that these matters would not be ignored, as has been the case in the past year. However, the House is being asked to vote for a pig in a poke and accept something that cannot possibly be quantified. The three issues that the right hon. Gentleman identified make it impossible to give any valid estimate of the costs of the ID card scheme.
	In an intervention from elsewhere on the Labour Benches, we were toldI paraphrasethat the Minister had assured us that the cost would be kept as low as possible. Those of us who remember the poll tax debates in the House know that no Minister said, We're going to make the poll tax as high as possibleon the contrary, the Government said it would be 50 quid or 100 quid and would be kept as low as possible. They said it would transform local government finance, but of course they could not estimate the cost of the poll tax because they could not estimate the cost of enforcement. In the famous phrase of Michael Heseltine, it was unenforceableunworkable. That is exactly what we are facing once again. The three issues that the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen so ably identified in his speech in favour of the Bill should reinforce substantially the opposition to it and our doubts about it.
	There are two other cost issues that we must bear in mind. The first was raised in an earlier debate, when we heard a quote from Mr. Jerry Fishenden, the national technology officer for Microsoft, from The Scotsman this morning. As a high ranking official of Microsoft, he is presumably in a reasonable position to estimate the damage that the Bill could cause if it were not correctly handled. He said that it would lead to a massive fraud
	on a scale as yet unseen.
	If that comes about, it will be a cost on general business and on security, and measures will have to be introduced to counteract the massive fraud
	on a scale as yet unseen
	again, totally unquantifiable by the Government.
	Lastly, there is the question of opportunity costof what we might be doing with the billions if we were not pursuing this pig in a poke or buying these unfinished goods, this spatchcock legislation. I suppose the Government might fight another war. That would be another 5 billion

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be the first to recognise that he is straying well away from the amendments, which are about what people will have to pay for the cards. We are not dealing with the Iraq war at this stage in the proceedings.

Alex Salmond: As always, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I accept your advice, but the question of opportunity cost bears on what people will have to pay. In the absence of an answer from the Government to any of the substantive questions that have been raised, they cannot give us a realistic estimate of costs. The LSE estimates that have been quotedthe 10 billion to 19.2 billion, which would result in a cost for the individual of 170 to 230are the best and most reasonable estimate available.
	If those are the real coststhe best that can reasonably be estimated from the Government's lack of preparedness and in the absence of information from themit is legitimate to ask how those substantial charges will be extracted from members of the public. At the time of the poll tax, one of the jokes was that people would next be taxed for breathing. The way that the Government formulate identity cards makes them virtually a tax on existence. In the absence of any assurance, quantification or solidity underpinning the Government's position, it is entirely legitimate to ask how the charges will be extracted from the population. When the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) asks about poinding and warrant sales, those are legitimate questions. It will require more than a little additional advice from the Treasury Bench to answer themperhaps not in relation to the result of the votes tonight, but certainly when there is a general debate and the effects of such a disastrous Bill are felt among the general public.

Bill Etherington: I congratulate the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) on his honesty. He clearly said that he had moved the amendment to try to wreck the Bill. That is admirable. I want it to be understood that, for precisely the opposite reasons to those that he advanced, some of us support the proposition that there should be no individual payment to obtain what is compulsory.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) opposes identity cards, but I am not against the concept. I have reservationsfor example, I do not believe that ID cards will be a panacea or solve all the problems that we are led to believe they will solve, but they can improve the situation. ID cards are an erosion of civil liberties, but on balance, I can live with that. Although in this case the erosion of civil liberties may not appear too severe, that must be taken in conjunction with the various other erosions of civil liberties that have occurred since we took power in 1997. The erosion of civil liberties is becoming increasingly worrying, and I look forward to the day when a Labour Minister stands at the Dispatch Box and announces an increase in civil liberties, rather than their curtailment. That is the history of our party, and it causes some of us considerable concern.
	There can be significant advantages to the use of identity cards or smart cards, whichever they are called. I believe that the matter is being properly addressed, but there is one thing that I cannot come to terms with. Various comparisons have been made by Ministers. We hear about driving licences and passports, and the fact that people have to pay for those. But with very few exceptions, nobody is obliged to purchase a passport, because very few people are obliged to go abroad. They go abroad because they choose to. The same can be said about obtaining a driving licence. Very few people are obliged to drive a motor car, so they are not obliged to purchase a driving licence.
	When the Government decide that for the benefit of society as a whole some measure needs to be introduced, society as a whole, not the individual, should pay for it. We have all heard about the old age pensioner couple who might see their winter fuel allowance wiped out because eventually it will be compulsory for them to obtain identity cards, whereas if it cost 100, 200 or 300 to obtain an identity card, it would not have any great effect on people like us. That principle is wrong. Although we do not hear so much about it now, I rather like the concept of socialism and progressive taxation. It is an admirable concept that those who take most out of society should put most back in, for the benefit of us all.
	It is unfair that if something is compulsory, people should be obliged to pay for it. Initially, ID cards will be voluntary. Does anybody believe that people will shell out money for something that is voluntary, if they do not need to? When the voluntary card becomes compulsory, which will eventually happenit has considerable meritit will be so much more difficult if few people have taken up the voluntary option. Even at this late stage I ask the Government to think again. I have not mentioned costs or the merit of costs, because I do not want to stray into those matters. Any Member or Minister who is concerned about the cost should bear in mind that there will be a far greater incentive to keep the cost down if the Treasury must bear the cost than if it falls on the individual.

Tobias Ellwood: This debate is not simply about ID cards: it is about the relationship between the citizen and the state and the borderline between what civil liberties we are willing to concede in order to live in a fairer, safe and secure world.
	The Bill's aims are commendablethey include tackling ID fraud, benefit fraud, illegal immigration and terrorismbut as we learn more about the detail of the costs, the British nation is becoming increasingly sceptical. I wonder whether we would be having this debate if the Government were a little more transparent about some of the costs that are likely to be incurred. My hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) quoted the report from the London School of Economics. Other estimates of the total cost of the project range from 3 billion all the way up to 10 billion.
	I wonder whether we will get value for money if we spend that much. It has been said that the police support the project. If they knew that they had 10 billion to spend on helping with matters to do with security and benefit fraud, would they spend it in this fashion? For example, Bournemouth is crying out for an improved CCTV system. We could easily spend that money on projects that are worth while and beneficial to the nation instead of a system which has no exact final cost. In America, where they do not have ID cards yet, extra money after 9/11 has been invested in homeland security and strengthening its borders.
	The costs of current database systems have spiralled. The NHS database went from 6.2 billion up to 20 billion. The probation service database went from 85 million to 120 million, and was then scrapped. The air traffic control system went from 350 million to 630 million. Why would the database for ID cards be any different? What guarantees can the Government give that they are not going to repeat those mistakes?
	Another issue is that of the performance of the IT. The Passport Agency, the Child Support Agency and the Criminal Records Bureau have all had IT problems with their databases. Again, why should the ID cards database be any different?
	Lots of questions have been asked today about the cost. How much would it cost to replace the card? How much has already been spent on the project to date? I asked those questions of the Minister in Committee. Is there an upper limit to how much the Government are willing to spend before they say that the costs have spiralled out of control, as in the case of previous databases? In order to prevent a terrorist from using a stolen ID card, or a thief from making a false benefit claim, some form of verification processa contraption such as an iris scannerwill be required to determine that the person holding the card is the person they say they are. We will then get that apparatus right across Britain, including at all our airports. Who will meet the cost for those additional bits of equipment?
	Having debated this on Second Reading, in Committee and today, I believe that the Bill is flawed. It is open-ended and dangerous in that it does not have a clear timetable, it is based on technology that does not work and uses questionable or unknown costings, and it is increasingly without the support of the people.

Andrew Love: I did not intend to speak in the debate but as there is some time I should like to make a couple of brief points. The first concerns spiralling costs. At the beginning of the project, the cost of identity cards was meant to be 15. It then went up to 35 and was linked to the passport and went up to 77. The latest estimate is 93. It takes a great deal of trust and confidence to think that it will not continue to rise.
	We all know that there are significant risks to the costs involved in the project. That is one reason why many people, even those who support the scheme, are suggesting that there needs to be greater transparency. In my constituency, the turnover of people is in the region of 20 to 30 per cent. annually. The electoral register cannot keep up because of that movement. If addresses are to be included, as was suggested earlier, the costs will spiral, especially in urban areas such as Greater London.
	So far we have not mentioned inaccuracy, but there will be substantial inaccuraciesthere are in every computer system that we have. Sorting them out will undoubtedly lead to major increases in cost. There will also be great public concern about security. Making the system even more secure will cost money.
	There has been much talk about the location of the centres for biometric identification. We can be sure that, whatever number the Government come up with, we will need to double it to satisfy the public. The time taken to go through the identification process will be much greater than estimated. If we add function creep and the inflation of the amount of information that is kept in the systemall are consequences of a mandatory schemeone can envisage costs spiralling out of control.
	How can we make the scheme proportionate to the likely limited benefits that it can deliver? That cost-benefit analysis has not been done. We have talked a lot about the financial cost but there are also related social costs. One of the great disappointments of the Home Affairs Committee report was that it steered clear of that argument. It behoves the Chamber to discuss those costs. Let us consider the 51 pieces of information that will be held on an individual. They require 13 different biometric tests. If that is not information overkill, I do not know what is. That is not proportionate to the likely benefits. I hope that, if nothing else, the Government will at least listen to the anxieties that are being expressed; otherwise, first the Home Office and then the Government will be shafted.

Mark Todd: One of my concerns is that the Government have not shared their business case with us even in edited form. It would give us substantial information about the assumptions and benefits to which my hon. Friend referred. As I understand it, the business case will have attempted to produce a net present value of the project to demonstrate that it will have a return over time. I would expect that to be marginal on the basis of the Government's costs. If one then applied the sensitivities that we have discussed such as possible overruns, which my hon. Friend mentioned, the project is likely to cost us a great deal more than has been estimated up to now.

Andrew Love: I concur. I served on the Public Accounts Committee for some time and we considered many such reports. Of course, the assumptions that one includes in a net present value calculation are critical. In the sensitivity analysis, if one does not make proper assumptions about the likely outcome, one will get it wrong. The Government need to consider the matter carefully. If they listen to the comments that have been made today, they will do that.

Lynne Jones: I share the concerns about the cost of identity cards and the charges that will ultimately be levied for them. The Government have given us no indication of the way in which their estimate of 580 million or so a year for the cost of the scheme is broken down between what is necessary to comply with international requirements for passports and what is needed to create their comprehensive identity scheme, which is about not only identity cards but the national identity register.
	The Government claim that international requirements account for 70 per cent. of the cost of the scheme. However, let us consider the figures that we have. The current cost of our passport is 42.36. Next year, that will increase by the substantial amount of 15.57 to 57.93. I asked the Government for the reason for the increase and they replied that it was largely due to the delivery of several key counter-fraud initiatives, notably interviews for all first-time applicants, links with other public sector databases and the full implementation of facial biometric passports. That is just for the facial biometric, not for the other biometrics that will be required. Yet the cost of the full implementation of the scheme will be 93, to include 30 for the ID card. The passport, without the ID card, will cost 63. That is an increase of only 5.07, which implies only an additional 10 per cent. cost for the minimal requirement of the facial biometric.
	These figures beggar belief. How are we going to achieve all the additional biometricsall 10 fingerprints, plus iris recognition and the facial biometricand the implementation of the national identity register with all the continual changes involved, for that amount? This is not comparable with the present UK passport database, which is a static database. Between 2006 and 2007, we shall move over to the full implementation of the scheme, with its constantly changing database, yet we are told that it is going to cost only an extra 10 per cent. Even the cost of the whole package, at 93, still represents a fairly modest increase for such a huge change in the scheme.
	The Government are giving us assurances about keeping the costs down, but perhaps the best way for them to achieve that would be to abandon this scheme and do what the Americans, the Germans and all the other European countries are doing, which is to have an ID card or passport that has just a few simple biometrics and no central database.

Andy Burnham: Over the past hour or so, the debate has arrived at the point of concern for most people in the country, namely, the cost of the scheme to individuals and its cost more generally. I do not believe that many people will be persuaded by the great perorations on liberty that we have heard tonight. They can see the purpose and the benefits of the identity card scheme and they want to know whether it will be affordable. That is the bottom line.
	Many good points have been raised on both sides of the House tonight, in what has become a more reasoned debate since about 7 o'clock. There has also been hyperbole on both sides, and the poll tax has been mentioned on a number of occasions. There is quite a difference between a proposal for people to pay between 800 and 1,000 a year, and one for an identity card that will cost 30 for 10 years. They are not directly comparable, and it did the debate no good to make that comparison.
	There is however some common ground between us. We all have a vested interest in ensuring that the overall costs of the schemeand therefore the cost to the individualare as low as possible. I shall address the two matters separately: the cost to the individual, and the related point that was so eloquently raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) about the cost of the scheme overall.
	Amendments Nos. 7 and 19 raise a point of principleinterestingly, it was raised by Members on the Conservative Front Benchabout making the cards free of charge. While we agree that the charges should be kept as affordable as possible, there is clearly an issue involved in whether there should be any charge at all. My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Bill Etherington) put forward his argument on that point very clearly.
	We believe that the card will bring a range of benefits to the individual, in terms of everyday convenience, and of enhancing their ability to protect their own identity data against misuse. Individuals will also benefit from being able to use the card as a travel document within the European Union. That, of course, is a benefit to the individual, and is consistent with the charge that is levied for a passport at the moment. The question raised by the amendments is whether the cost of the scheme should be met entirely from general taxationI believe that that was the thrust of the contributions of my hon. Friends the Members for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and for Sunderland, North and of the Conservative amendmentor whether it is right to set a charge that reflects the benefits to the individual while also ensuring that it is affordable.
	I want to take head-on the point raised repeatedly in the debate about the opportunity cost. During the general election campaign, I lost count of the number of times that the Liberal Democrats said that they would use the money from the national identity card scheme to put more police on the street. That was an entirely spurious argument, as there is not a great big pot of money that can then be allocated to pay for more police on the beat. Our proposal is for a scheme based on recovery of charges from individuals. The argument that there is a big amount of money to be allocated either to ID cards or some other public purpose, such as CCTV in Bournemouth, is not therefore correct.

Tim Farron: Is the Minister therefore saying that the entire cost of ID cards will be borne by citizens paying up front for the card, and not by the taxpayer?

Andy Burnham: That is precisely the basis on which the scheme has been developedthat the costs of running the scheme will be recovered through charges to the individuals and organisations who use the service. The idea that the money could be diverted to a wish list of other things, whether CCTV in Bournemouth or more police on the beat, simply does not stack up.

Tobias Ellwood: The Minister makes an important point, but does he not agree that we would have a much more transparent, useful and interesting debate if we had the costs in front of us today? People have been stabbing in the dark using independent reports, whereas if the Government had done their homework before coming to the House, we would be able to have a proper debate, and the nation would be in a better position to judge whether the scheme is worth it or whether we should spend the money elsewhere.

Andy Burnham: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman, who was a member of the Standing Committee, should make that comment at this point. Detail has been laid before the House on the annual costs of the scheme, and he had access to documentation during Committee showing the cost as 584 million a year. He will also know that information about the benefits of the scheme, in terms of value realised per annum, which has been raised on many occasions today, has been made available. Some detailed work has been done on that, and it has been quantified at 650 million to 1.1 billion per annum. The scheme therefore has a considerable net present value.

Alistair Carmichael: Can the Minister confirm that one of these sources of income will be other Departments? That being the case, can he tell me where those other Departments are getting their money from?

Andy Burnham: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is referring to other Departments making a contribution to the scheme, or whether he thinks that they will pay an annual charge. My point is that the costs of the scheme have been developed according to costs paid by individuals to be enrolled and issued with a passport and identity card, and costs paid by organisations that use the scheme.

Alex Salmond: How is it possible for the House to place any credibility on the Government's estimates when they have palpably not answered the questions posed by the Select Committee, which one of the friends of the Bill posed to the Minister earlier this evening? If those have not been examined properly, which is the word of the Select Committee Chairman, how can any credibility be placed on the Government's costings?

Andy Burnham: I shall talk about the issues raised by the Chairman of the Select Committee now. I listened carefully to what he had to say. As always, he made a number of extremely valuable pointsand I hasten to remind him that he prefaced his remarks with the comment that he was a supporter of the scheme. I think he said that the case was compelling. Does the hon. Gentleman recall that?

Alex Salmond: Yes.

Andy Burnham: I do as well. I welcomed the Chairman's observations: he made a number of sensible points, and it behoves one in my position to note them carefully and respond to them properly. One of them related to addresses

Mark Todd: My hon. Friend touched on the net present value of the project. Will he place in the Library a calculation of its value, and its exposure to sensitivities? That would be useful to us during the remainder of the Bill's passage.
	My hon. Friend referred to other stakeholders. I assume that he was thinking of the private sector and the contributions that it might have to make. Can he give us any idea of the basis on which we can place any reliance on what those concerned have said so far? In fact, they seem to have been silent on the subject.

Andy Burnham: My hon. Friend mentioned the KPMG report earlier. We have said that a summary of the report will be published shortly. I shall be happy to make it available to any Member who would like to read it.
	My hon. Friend's second point was

Mark Todd: My first point was about net present value, which was not precisely what the KPMG report addressed. It was addressed more in the Office of Government Commerce analysis. My second point related to the assumptions made about private sector contributions to the success of the project, and the extent to which we could rely on those involved in view of their relative silence to date.

Andy Burnham: As the scheme progresses, we shall seek to share more information. The Chairman of the Select Committee made the valuable point that being open about the procurement process could strengthen the scheme.
	My right hon. Friend also mentioned the possible cost of constant re-registration by people moving house. As he will know, addresses are currently printed on the front of driving licences. I do not think it would be sensible to require people to obtain a new identity card every time they moved house. We want a system enabling people easily to communicate a change of address to those who run the scheme, but I take his point. He also mentioned the chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, and the recommendation that a group should be established to consider the efficacy of biometrics. I can tell him that a biometrics assurance group, a Government group, is being set up under Sir David's chairmanship.
	The issues are coming into sharper focus now that we have reached a point at which rigorous testing is necessary. Regular meetings have already been scheduled for the next 12 months, and the Home Office has recently appointed a senior biometrics adviser from the private sector.

Alex Salmond: May I bring this particular issue into even sharper focus? The Minister has said, a year after the Select Committee's report, that the Government are taking on board the point about addresses, and that it will be easy for people to notify the authorities about a change of address. What will happen if they do not do that?

Andy Burnham: If the hon. Gentleman has read the Bill, he will know that people are required to notify the authorities of a change of address. I want to ensure that they can do that easily and quickly.
	My right hon. Friend asked whether this was just a Home Office scheme that would be examined by the rest of Government, or a cross-Government scheme. He may know that a cross-departmental group of Ministers from the main Departments with an interest in the scheme, chaired by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, is looking in detail at all the issues that he mentioned. It is looking at how Departments can plan now to build the national identity register into their work, so that we can get maximum benefit at the earliest possible stage. However, my right hon. Friend's point was well made.

Tim Farron: On consulting other Departments and the costs that have yet to be built in, does the Minister recall his answer to me in Committee? He said that members of staff operating and administering the scheme would be deemed to be in positions of trust. Has he established how much it will cost to ensure that that vast army of people are security cleared and police checked, and has he consulted the trade unions?

Andy Burnham: I remember saying that to the hon. Gentleman, and I will of course take on board those issues as we move forward.
	Let me deal directly with the cost to the individualthe issue that those listening to this debate want most reassurance on. As the House knows, on Second Reading my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary gave a commitment that he would seek to introduce an ID card cost that we believe is affordable and fair to the majority of the public. The hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) said that we danced round this issue in Committee, and I am happy to tell him this evening that the Home Secretary has confirmed that a 30 fee for a stand-alone ID card would be a fair price to pay. We believe that, crucially, it is affordable

Patrick Mercer: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Perhaps I might seek some advice. Would it be in order for you to ask the Minister to conclude his speech, so that I might have time to withdraw my amendment?

Madam Deputy Speaker: It is certainly not for me to determine that. The Minister has the Floor, and when he decides to sit down is entirely up to him.

Andy Burnham: I shall endeavour to give the hon. Gentleman the reply that he asked for. We have been able to set this fee, but the one qualification is that before we enter the procurement stage, it is of course difficult to be hard and fast about the fees that could be charged. But we think it right at this stage to give those listening to this debate an idea of the cost of the stand-alone card. We believe that doing so will build confidence in the scheme.

Several hon. Members: rose

Andy Burnham: I shall give way one more time, to my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who was a member of the Standing Committee.

David Drew: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Will he clarify what will happen in the case of a lost, and particularly a stolen, card? Will the assumption be that the person in question has to pay for full cost recovery, or will tolerance be shown, so that the poorest, who may prove most subject to theft, are not asked to make the greatest contribution?

Andy Burnham: My hon. Friend makes a fair point, and we are looking at whether a replacement fee can be introduced. In cases where people lose their card, it should not be necessary for them to go through the whole process again and to pay the full price of a card. Such issues will be clarified as we get into the next stage of the scheme. My hon. Friend may find more reassurance in clause 37, which sets out the wide range of powers to set fees and allows for the payment of fees in instalments. As I pointed out, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, in setting the 30 stand-alone fee, said that we believe such a fee to be fair. It also means that not everybody will have to pay for the cost of an identity card and passport. The stand-alone fee deals with one of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Newark, in that it gives people a choice. They can choose whether to purchase an ID card, at a cost of 30, that will enable them to travel within the European Union, or to purchase the two documentsthe passport and the ID cardthe current combined unit cost of which is 93. However, the 30 card will not be a cut-price or inferior card, as has been suggested in some parts of the media.
	Amendment No. 19 seeks to exclude from clause 37 the power to charge for ID cards. We believe that that is not the correct thing to do at this stage. We of course want people to register with the scheme, but a charge of 30 is affordable, particularly if they can pay in instalments. By way of comparison, several other EU countries charge for ID cards. France, where the ID card has traditionally been free of charge, is now looking to charge for the new biometric card, which will be introduced there soon. What we are proposing, Madam Deputy Speaker, is consistent with practice in other parts of the EU, particularly France

It being Nine o'clock, Madam Deputy Speaker put the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [this day].
	The House divided: Ayes 277, Noes 310.

Question accordingly negatived.
	It being after Nine o'clock, Madam Deputy Speaker then proceeded to put forthwith the Questions to be disposed of at that hour.

Clause 29
	  
	Unauthorised Disclosure of Information

Amendments made: No. 3, in page 25, line 42, after 'issue,', insert 'manufacture,'.[Andy Burnham.]

Clause 43
	  
	General Interpretation

Amendment made: No. 4, in page 37, line 29, after '1(5)', insert 'and (5A)'.[Andy Burnham.]
	Order for Third Reading read.[Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.]

Charles Clarke: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
	I begin by giving thanks to a number of colleagues. First, I thank my ministerial colleagues, my hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) as well as my colleagues in the Whips' office who have worked so hard to ensure that the Bill is passed. I thank the Bill teammy official colleagues who have worked so hard and have been ready on all occasions to discuss with all interests how we can improve the Bill and take it forward in a variety of ways. I thank the House authorities and the Clerks for the way in which the business has been conducted through a time-consuming process.
	The Bill before the House is based closely on that approved by the House on 10 February 2005, so this is the second time that I have come to the House to propose that an Identity Cards Bill should receive its Third Reading. The Bill before us has had more scrutiny than most legislation. We had a six-month public consultation exercise starting in 2002, an inquiry by the Home Affairs Select Committee starting in 2003 and further consultation on the draft Bill in 2004. The first Bill was introduced in November 2004 and ran out of time because of the general election, and we now have reached the point for the current Bill to be approved by the House.
	I believe that the time has come when we need the benefits and safeguards that an identity cards scheme will provide both to individuals, who will be able to prove their identity securely and reliably, and in the wider public interest. The identity card is an essential step in the process of providing a clear legislative framework for introducing identity cards. I know that the system has been controversial; the issue itself is controversial. But I believe that we all need to understand that we already live in a society in which enormous banks of information are held about all of us, whether by financial institutions, employers, passport and driving licence authorities, health and education authorities or criminal justice agencies. Moreover, we all now face many occasions on which we need to prove our identity, whether to open a bank account, to take out a mortgage, to claim a benefit, to pass through a border control, to get a Criminal Records Bureau clearance or many other basic transactions of our day-to-day lives. I believe that an up-to-date identity cards system will make all those transactions easier for the individual and will also be beneficial for the state. It will provide an effective mechanism to tackle crime, to reduce identity fraud, and to improve legitimate access to services. I believe that it will not remove civil liberties but will give an individual greater control over his identity.
	Some have alleged that the Bill will create a Big Brother state. I do not believe that. I believe that it will help to control that state. It is an ambitious programme, I acknowledge, but one that we are setting on the path to achieve.

Peter Bottomley: Will the Home Secretary give way?

Charles Clarke: No, not at this stage. To meet many concerns that have been raised, changes have been made in the Report stage, which has just concluded, to provide additional safeguards. I will of course continue to listen and to act on constructive comments on the plans for delivering the identity card scheme once this enabling legislation has completed its passage through Parliament. We intend that the first ID cards should be issued by the end of 2008, and there will be further opportunities between now and then for the House to look at the detailed provisions to be set out in secondary legislation.
	The simple fact is that the possession of a clear, unequivocal, unique form of identity in the shape of a card linked to a database holding biometrics will provide benefits to us all. It is why 21 out of 25 European Union member states already have ID card systems. It is why, in recent surveys, more than 70 per cent. of the public say that they support the introduction of ID cards. Moreover, biometrics are being developed around the world to improve the security and reliability of identity documents, including fingerprint biometrics on visas and our own facial image biometric passports, to be introduced in around a year's time.

Alex Salmond: rose

Neil Gerrard: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Charles Clarke: No, I shall not.
	That is why the introduction of identity cards needs to proceed incrementally, building on our plans for biometric passports.
	Let me reassert the benefits of the scheme. First, ID cards will help to tackle identity fraud, which now costs the UK economy and society more than 1.3 billion a year. Secondly, a secure identity system will help to prevent terrorist activity, more than a third of which makes use of false identities. Thirdly, identity cards will make it far easier to control immigration and illegal working, and British citizens will be able to use their identity cards instead of a passport to travel in Europe. Fourthly, ID cards will secure the more efficient and effective provision of public services.
	The scheme will not create threats to privacy or change the way we live our lives, as many have alleged. We have never proposed a scheme under which it would be compulsory to carry a card or which would require the production of an identity card to the police. The Bill also sets limits on the information that can be held on the register. It will not contain information about criminal convictions, financial records or political or religious opinions. Indeed, on Report, we have just amended the Bill so that it will not be possible to add a police national computer number to the register. No one will have access to the national identity register other than those operating it. What the Bill allows is for information to be provided from the register either with the consent of the individual or without that consent in strictly limited circumstances in accordance with the law of the land.
	The introduction of ID cards will take place incrementally. The first stage will be to introduce the scheme and to enable everyone to register and obtain a biometric ID card when, for example, they apply for or renew a passport. However, a stand-alone ID card will also be available for British citizens who do not hold a passport. It will make it quicker and easier to obtain Criminal Records Bureau clearance for people who have already had their identity verified by obtaining an ID card. Registration will be enforced through civil, not criminal, penalties, which will offer flexibility to deal sympathetically with the circumstances of any individual case.
	On costs, we estimate, as the Under-Secretary has already set out, that the total average annual running costs for issuing passports and ID cards to UK nationals will be 584 million. The Bill provides for a range of services to be covered by fees, such as approving an organisation before it can make checks against the register and usage fees for identity checks. It is right in my opinion that organisations benefiting from the checks should fund those costs.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: rose

John McDonnell: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Charles Clarke: No[Hon. Members: Give way!] I have made it clear that I will not give way[Hon. Members: Why not?] It is because we have only a short time for this Third Reading and I intend to set out the argument.[Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The Home Secretary has made it clear that at this moment in time he will not give way.

Charles Clarke: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I hope hon. Members will acknowledge, I often give way a great deal in such debates, but we have a short Third Reading debate and I intend to set out the argument clearly.
	As we have said all along, we expect that most people will get their ID card along with their passport. That will give people the full benefits associated with having the most secure travel documentation, which can be used worldwide. Some 80 per cent. of the population hold a passport and the increased costs associated with recording biometric information and producing a more secure document would have to be incurred anyway, if the British passport is to keep its reputation among the most secure and trusted in the world.
	Our current best estimate of the average unit cost of getting a combined passport and ID card packageas we have said since the outsetis 93. Some 70 per cent. of those costs would be incurred anyway, because of the worldwide move to biometric passports.
	For a variety of reasons, some people may choose to obtain a stand-alone ID card, but, in considering what the cost of this entry-level option should be, I have to take account of the overall finances of the scheme. Since the debate on Second Reading, the project has been through a further Office of Government Commerce review on business justification. The review confirmed that the project is ready to proceed to the next phase. An independent assurance panel is now in place to ensure that the work is subject to rigorous, ongoing challenge by experts, as well as major period reviews by the OGC process.
	I have commissioned KPMG to undertake an independent review of the costing methodology and the key costs assumptions. KPMG has concluded that the methodology used to cost the ID card proposals is robust and appropriate for this stage of development. KPMG has recommended improvements, such as extending the sensitivity analysis and revisiting the process for estimating contingency and some cost assumptions. KPMG has confirmed that the majority of the cost assumptions are based on appropriate benchmarks and analysis from the public sector and suppliers, and I will be acting on its recommendations as we move towards procurement after Royal Assent. An executive summary of the report will be published in due course.
	Of course, our estimates must be finely tested in the marketplace. The final determination of what the scheme will cost individuals and organisations depends not just on how well we have specified the requirements, but on how the marketplace responds to the challenge of delivering an efficient, effective and affordable scheme.
	I welcome the recent statement of support from Intellect, which represents the leading companies in the IT industry. John Higgins, the director general, has said that Intellect members and the wider UK technology industry have the ability to meet the technological challenges created by the Government's ID card proposals. The technology being considered, which will form the basis of the scheme, has already been used in similar programmes across the world and is well established.

Geoffrey Robinson: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Hon. Members: Give way!

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The Home Secretary will determine when he is ready to give way.

Charles Clarke: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	For the Government's part, I have ensured that the fee-setting powers provided by clause 37 allow us to set a fee regime that is flexible and affordable and that can take into account any innovative approach suggested by possible suppliers. I can therefore tell the House thatas the Under-Secretary has already indicatedwithin our current financial estimates of the whole scheme, it will be affordable to set a charge of 30 at current prices for a stand-alone ID card that is valid for 10 years. No one who wants to protect their identity need pay more.
	The essence of the scheme is clear; but, of course, there has been a political debate on that, too. The Opposition have changed their position consistentlyor inconsistentlythroughout their approach. If I may speak as a candid friend when looking at the Conservatives in the leadership election that they now face, I want to remind them that, on 14 December 2004, the shadow Cabinet decided to back ID cards, under the leadership of the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), and he wrote in The Daily Telegraph setting out that approach.
	On 20 December, the Tories voted in favour of ID cards on Second Reading. On Report and Third Reading, the majority of Tories MPs abstained, while some voted against the Bill in principle. That was a victoryperhaps not one repeated this eveningfor the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), who succeeded in changing the position of the parliamentary Conservative party on these questions. In the wash-up in April 2005, the Conservatives moved to outright opposition and killed the Bill. On 28 June 2005, when the Bill was reintroduced on Second Reading, they voted against it. I believe that that is a clear case of identity crisis for the Conservative party.[Interruption.] Yes, it is, and I could go further, but I will not

Edward Garnier: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We all enjoy a little bit of banter, but we are debating the Bill on Third Reading and no one should be hiding behind the bluster that we have heard. We have a very short time in which to discuss the Bill. I should be most grateful to the Home Secretary if he returned to the Bill.

Madam Deputy Speaker: The Home Secretary was certainly doing some recollecting, but I hope that he will now address his remarks to the Bill. There has been banter on both sides.

Charles Clarke: I accept your injunction, Madam Deputy Speaker. I understand the sensitivity on the official Opposition Benches in the absence of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and HowdenI wonder where he is.
	I conclude by noting that the public debate on identity cards began more than three years ago. The Government have proceeded in a measured way through consultation on the principles and, most recently, on draft legislation. The Bill sets out a clear legal framework for the scheme. It provides a means for everyone legally resident in the UK to assert their right to be in the country and to help them gain access to the services to which they are entitled. It will help to preserve national security. It will assist the work of the law enforcement agencies and enable them to have the ID system they want.
	I commend the Bill to the House.

Edward Garnier: I begin by agreeing with one thing that the Home Secretary said. I, too, offer my thanks to the Clerks of the House and others who made the apolitical aspects of the Bill altogether more manageable.
	Where I depart from the Home Secretary is in the analysis of the Bill that he made during the 15 minutes that he occupied of this 45-minute debate. Indeed, is not there something rather obscene about a Home Secretary complaining about lack of time to debate his Bill because his Government have curtailed the time for debate? On Report, I pointed out that his Under-Secretary, with whom he is now conversing, was cut off in his prime in Committee. I believe that the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality was also cut off during Report this evening. All those things would be welcome in some circumstances, but if the Government say that their own motions prevent them from debating their legislation, who are we to complain?
	We need to be clear about the fact that during this debate the Government's majority was cut to 32 and 33, and I encourage all Members who are interested in democracy and civil liberties and who have read the Bill to vote with us this evening against the Third Reading. The Bill is economically illiterate and politically inept, and will prove socially divisive.
	The Government began the whole sorry process by saying that the Bill would be valuable in the fight against terrorism; yet, to be fair to the Home SecretaryI am occasionally fair to himon 8 July he said that identity cards would not have prevented the tube attacks on 7 July. We know that 9/11 would not have been prevented by identity cards. The people who committed those crimes had pilots' licences and passports. Those who committed the crimes on 7 July were perfectly happy to be filmed by the railway station closed circuit television. The problem was not hiding their identity, but hiding their intention[Interruption.] I am glad to see that Members on the Treasury Bench find the subject so tremendously funny.
	When the Government lost their first argument they said, Oh, perhaps we'll try benefit fraud. However, we know that benefit fraud will not be dealt with by the possession of identity cards or by the information in the national identity register. Then they said, Well, let's try immigration, that's bound to help. The Home Secretary is trying that again this evening, but the problem is that one does not have to register on the national identity register or hold an identity card if one is in the country for less than three months. When a person enters the country as a tourist, how are the Government to know that they have not remained beyond the permitted time?
	There is the problem of the free travel area between the UK and the Irish Republic and the free travel area in the European Union. What will that do? Far from preventing immigration illegalities, it will exacerbate ethnic problems and cultural division in the UK. Do the Government want to give a free hand to the British National party? Anybody who thinks that is a good idea should vote for this sordid Government this evening.
	The Government then said, and the Home Secretary repeated this evening, that the measure would deal with identity fraud. When the Bill began its passage in the summer, identity fraud cost the economy 50 million, but during the summer months the cost rose to 1.5 billion. I do not know why, and the Government have produced no evidence to support that fact. Indeed, we are having a Third Reading by assertion with an absence of proof. We cannot have legislation that is created in this form or pushed through in such a way, and we cannot tolerate a Government who have absolutely no understanding of the constitution of this country.
	The Government moved on to say that the scheme would prevent other forms of serious crime. As the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) pointed out on Second Reading, no serious criminal will be too bothered about whether he is required to register for, or have, an identity card. The money would be far better spent on police officers, gaining intelligence about the activities of criminals and producing a proper border control police.
	The Government have blustered and demanded that we agree with all their assertions, despite the lack of evidence to prove them. Eventually, they have ended up saying that it would be more convenient for us all if we had identity cards and information was stored away on the national identity register. If the Government want to see the population of this country wandering around with a form of barcode across our foreheads, or with a mark to allow us to come out of our houses, they are not the sort of Government whom this country needs. We should certainly not be promoting such a society.
	The Bill is obscene and absurd and it will do nothing but damage the country's interests as a whole. It will do nothing to advance the causes that we all share: defeating terrorism; doing away with benefit fraud; and tightening up our immigration rules, which the Government have randomly let fall apart. Of course we want to deal with identity fraud and serious crime, but the Bill will not do that in its present form and would not have done that in its first form. It is a ridiculous and stupid Bill.
	What will the scheme cost the citizen? All of us over the age of 16 will have to pay not only the 30 cost of buying the wretched card, but the travel costs of getting from the outer isles to the Glasgow centre at which one will be processed, as though one were in some gulag, or from rural parts of the country to other cities.
	What will the scheme cost the country as a whole? We all know that the cost will be somewhere between 8 billion and 19 billion, but the Government say that the cost of a card will be only 30. The whole thing is utterly absurd, and the more one examines what the Secretary of State has to say, the more absurd it becomes and the more absurd the Government are.
	Let us step aside from the practical arguments against the Bill and consider a matter of principle: the relationship between the citizen and state, about which the Government care little and know nothing. They have forgotten about constitutional historyif they knew anything about itand the proper relationship between the Government, Parliament and the judiciary. All that is swept aside with great windy bluster from the Home Secretary and his junior Ministers. It is time for Parliament to stand up for what it is supposed to and to defend the liberties of the citizen, not to kowtow to this appalling Government and go down on bended knee and grovel as they pass more and more appalling legislation to destroy the rights of the citizen. It is no good for the Government to say that this is all exaggerationjust look at what they have done already and what they intend to do through this Bill and other legislation to eat into the liberties of the citizen.
	This is a bad Bill from a sad Government. It is legislation by statutory instrument. The Government are providing 61 separate powers to enable the Home Secretary or his successor to produce secondary legislation. The Bill contains very little detail. It increases the penalty for misbehaviour. One could easily be fined up to 2,500 for what the Government politely call a civil penalty, and if one does not pay that, off one goes to prison.
	The Bill amounts to little more than a denial of democracy. The House should be ashamed of it, and I trust that all people of honour in the House will increase the Government's embarrassment by reducing their majority to way below 32indeed, we should kill this Bill.

David Winnick: The Bill will undoubtedly receive its Third Reading, probably with a slightly greater majority than the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) suggested, but it will pass without any enthusiasm whatsoever. It will pass because it is subject to a three-line Whip, understandably, but I do not think that it would get through, or that it would have received its Second Reading, on a free vote.
	I have been opposed to ID cards from the very beginning. Although the hon. and learned Gentleman spoke with much passion, I must tell him that the only member of the Home Affairs Committee that studied the matter who voted against the original measure was me. Conservative Committee members voted for the Bill and only one Labour Committee membermyselfvoted against it, as the record will show.
	Moreover, if I was convinced that the measure would help to prevent terrorism, despite all the difficultiesthe practical costs and so onI would vote for it. If identity cards could prevent casualties such as those on 7 July when people died or were seriously injuredone woman, for example, survived but had to have both legs amputated above the kneehow could I say that I would vote on principle against identity cards? I am simply not persuaded, however, that identity cards would prevent terrorism in any way. There have been terrorist incidents in Istanbul and Madrid, but there is no evidence whatsoever that identity cards, albeit without biometrics, prevented terrorism in those countries.
	The Government have given various reasons for introducing the measure, including the need to tackle identity fraud and illegal working. They gave the impression that identity cards would do the trick and those problems would be resolved. Countries that have identity cards, however, have the same problems. Hardly any of the problems that the Government say will be dealt with by identity cards fail to afflict countries that have long had identity cards. It is therefore difficult to understand the determination on the part of the Government and of senior Ministers to push the measure forward. I am convinced that in time the card will become compulsory. Moreover, it will be necessary to carry one at all times. I accept that that will not happen initially, but inevitably suspicions will be aroused among officials when they discover someone is not carrying their identity card.
	In conclusion, I do not accept the scenario painted by the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) and others, who say that the Government are determined to bring about a 1984 state and have sinister motives. I believe that the Government are misguided but are acting with the best of motives, which I do not question, nor their integrity. I certainly question their judgment. I would like the Government to remain in office and to be re-elected in due course. They are a Government whom I support and for whose election I fought, like other Members, for 18 years in opposition. There is a danger, however, that they will give the impression that they take our traditional liberties lightly. Our opponents will use every opportunity to convey that impression to the country.
	Labour Members must be very careful indeed when dealing with the threat of terrorismI am the last person to underestimate that threat, even if 7 July had not happenednot to give the impression that everything dear and precious to us and for which we fought for so long over the centuries can be taken lightly because of dangers that confront the country. I believe passionately in civil liberties. I believe passionately that this party and this movement are committed to civil liberties, but the measure before us today does not do anything to strengthen that impression. It is not justified, hence I shall vote against it on Third Reading.

Alistair Carmichael: When we subject today's proceedings to mature reflection we will realise that the House missed an opportunity earlier today when it failed to vote for the Bill's recommittal to a Special Standing Committee, as proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath). Despite the fact that this is the second time around for the measure and despite the Home Secretary's boasts that the Bill has received more scrutiny than has ever been the case with other legislation, an enormous number of questions remain. The House has still not addressed the practical issues surrounding the proposal. That is no accident. It is the result of the way in which the Government chose to present the Bill. The Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality has told us times without number that this is an enabling Bill. The Government have thereby allowed the House to postpone the hard questions until a later stage. The Minister may say, as he did today, that there will be 61 other occasions on which we will revisit the matter, but that ignores the manner in which secondary legislation is dealt with in the House.
	I know what our constituents will say when they are faced with the prospect of paying for cards that they do not particularly want but which they must have. They will not be impressed if we say, We could not ask those questions because it was an enabling Bill. That will result in the public's further public disengagement from the political and parliamentary processes.
	I shall watch with interest the progress of the Bill in another place. During the summer the Minister of State was reported as saying that the so-called super-affirmative procedure was flawed and unworkable. He is right. He will know that I pointed that out to him in Standing Committee, yet no amendments were made today to clause 7. Will the Minister tell us when we can expect to see the appropriate amendments to make the super-affirmative procedure workable, or are we to be left guessing? Will that change be made in the Lords?
	Like the Home Secretary, while preparing for today's debate I considered the speeches that were made on Second Reading, and I see little change. That is remarkably depressing. As the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) observed in his contribution as Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, the key points were made a year ago and still the Government have failed to act on them. The Home Secretary told us that we need the benefits derived from identity cards, but it will not be lost on the House that he did not go on to enumerate them.
	Others have said in the course of today's debate that the Government are asking us to buy a pig in a poke. As one who has a farming background, I feel that that is an inappropriate metaphor. I have bought many pigs in my life, and if one is buying a pig in a poke, one might not know what it looks like, but at least one knows the cost. A more appropriate retail metaphor for the Government's action would be to say that they have reduced the role of Ministers in the Home Office to nothing more than that of snake oil salesmen.
	No-one who wants to protect their identity need pay more
	does that not tell it all? The claims that Ministers make are overblown. They move glibly from one issue to another as each justification is demolished, and ultimately we know that the Bill will not work.
	The Home Secretary rightly pointed out the number of positions taken by the official Opposition in relation to the Bill. I am delighted that they have finally arrived at the right one. It is a brave politician who is prepared to say that he or she has considered the matter and changed their mind. We should not denigrate the Conservatives for doing so. I merely remind the House of a speech that was made to the Labour party conference in 1995, when a delegate said:
	Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards as the Tory Right demand, let that money provide thousands more police officers on the beat in our local communities.
	The tragedy of the Bill is that the Prime Minister's rhetoric in opposition has unfortunately been compromised by his actions in government.

Martin Salter: This is not the first time that I have debated this issue in this place. During earlier exchanges, we heard a lot of fuss about the compulsory nature of this enabling Bill, which will become evident further down the road. I sat on the Standing Committee that examined almost exactly the same Bill in the last Parliament. At no point have the Government ever denied their intention to move towards compulsion in respect of ID cards. It is no secret, and hon. Members should not be surprised.
	Indeed, it is difficult to see the point of a voluntary ID card system. What would it achieve? Do we have voluntary driving licences? Do we have voluntary passports? Do we have voluntary national insurance numbers? If one wants to travel, one needs a passport. If one wants to drive, one needs a driving licence. If one wants to work, one needs a national insurance number. The right to travel and the right to work are pretty fundamental rights. I have absolutely no problemand all the surveys show that the British people have absolutely no problemwith the right to be a UK resident being dependent on one's name and identity being on a national identity register. I do not get the argument that my civil liberties in a democracy would be in any way diminished by my, or my constituents, being required to say, I am who I say I am.
	There was a lot of hyperbole in some of the more ludicrous exchanges earlier. In an entertaining speech, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) took us on a tour of the great Liberal hall of fame, which I should have thought was more of a hut. I agree that Lloyd George belongs in it, but let us have Norman Scott, Jeremy Thorpe and that dog in there as well.[Interruption.] Yes, and Brian Sedgemore. [Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The House should come to order. I call Martin Salter, on the Third Reading of the Bill.

Martin Salter: I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker, for chiding the Liberal Democrats a little.
	We voluntarily hand over a huge amount of information in our ordinary livesin supermarkets, in chemists, through our mobile phone calls, and through the CCTV cameras that many Members who oppose ID cards are happy to campaign for in their constituencies. An awful lot of people, most of them unelected, know who we are, what we buy, why we buy it and when we buy it. We are targeted with direct mailshots as a result of using our credit and debit cards. It is a fact of life that it is difficult to remain anonymous any more.
	In addition to the civil liberties objections[Interruption.] Given the amount of heckling one would question the Opposition's commitment to civil liberties. In addition to civil liberties objections, hon. Members raised several others, some of which the Government have dealt with. The first of thoseit was a serious mistake on the part of the Government to let it runwas that of cost. Some fantasy figures were bandied about, especially from last June's London School of Economics report. No evidence was provided for the claim that an ID card will eventually cost UK citizensmy constituents300. I am pleased that the Home Secretary has put that particular genie back into the lamp. A capped cost of 30 is a commitment made in this House that is worth keeping.
	We heard that ID cards will not work. The other day I read some material from those opposed to ID cards saying that the biometric technology is not in place and that it will not register people with brown eyes. At the invitation of my hon. Friends at the Home Office, I took the trouble to visit it to see biometric technology in operation. I was surprised at how easy it was to have one's biometrics registered; the whole process took less than five minutes. It is interesting that the UK, in common with other legislatures in modern, liberal democracies, is now introducing biometric passports[Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Private conversation is getting far too loud.

Martin Salter: The UK is introducing biometric passports to help fight passport fraud and forgery, to help the public and the UK to fight identity fraud, to ensure that the British passport remains one of the most secure and respected in the world, to facilitate more robust border control, to fulfil international standards that the International Civil Aviation Organisation has set and to ensure that British citizens can continue to benefit from visa-free travel to the United States. No one could have a principled objection to that. We are embracing technology that already exists.
	I support identity cards. I campaigned for them before they became trendy and fashionable. I firmly believe that ID cards have a role to play in 21st century Britain. That is why most liberal democracies in the European Union have embraced the concept. Identity cards will disrupt the use of false and multiple identities by organised criminals and those involved in terrorist activity. They have a role to play in tackling illegal working and immigration abuse. They will enable easier and more convenient access to public services and ensure that they are used only by those who are entitled to them. They will help to protect the British people from identity fraud and theft.
	We live in a less secure and more dangerous world. The modern, biometric identity card is an idea whose time has come. I urge my colleagues to support Third Reading.

Stewart Hosie: On Second Reading, the Government failed miserably to argue for the five stated justifications for the measure. They failed to convince the electorate through the press during the summer and, notwithstanding the truncated nature of today's debate, they barely touched on the five stated justifications, which are: to tackle terrorism; to fight crime; to cover access to public services; to prohibit unauthorised working, and to enhance immigration control.
	The key unanswered question is about terrorists who currently come here with fake, forged or stolen identities that are sufficiently robust for them to be allowed access. If they come here in future, such robust false identities will be turned into genuine ones by the allocation of an identity card or other parts of the documentation in the ID suite.The terrorist networks will be disrupted and smashed by additional funding for intelligence, not identity cards in the pockets, purses and wallets of innocent citizens in the UK.
	Let us consider general crime prevention. Not one hon. Member believes that an identity card will stop a single criminal or deter a single crime unless the Government intend the cards to be mandatory and the police can stop, question and ask to see the card of someone who behaves suspiciously. As I said on Second Reading, the police already have the power to stop someone if they have a reasonable ground for believing that that person is about to commit a crime. If the Government were serious about tackling crime, there would not be plastic cards but thousands of extra police on the streets, protecting normal people from normal crimes in normal communities. That has never been rebutted.
	On identity theft, the Home Secretary repeated tonight that the cost of identity theft was 1.3 billion. That is the big myth. As The Economist said, the figure includes
	the cost of dealing with immigrants who arrive in Britain with false documents.
	The introduction of identity cards will not stop one person coming in with false papers or save one penny. According to The Economist, the real cost of fraudulent applications and hijacked accounts is only 36.9 million. The Bill is a massive and disproportionate response to that problem.
	Time is short and I shall therefore skip many points[Hon. Members: Hooray.]but not all of them. The Government have failed to argue the case for how they will stop unauthorised working. The gangmasters will flout the rule. Are Ministers expecting every berry field, cockle field and potato farm to have a biometric scanner in the buckie when the casual labour arrives? That is nonsense; it will not happen.
	I said on Second Reading that the Bill was a bad measure, which would make bad law. A Labour Member said that many Labour Members would rue the day they voted for the measure. They will.

Nick Palmer: In the one minute remaining, I would like to celebrate the fact that the Bill is finally introducing the provisions of the private Member's Bill that I introduced five years ago. The Government would have saved a lot of time if they had accepted that Bill.
	The British people see the common sense of this Bill. They welcome it because they can see that it will make ordinary people safer, and they cannot see why the Opposition are against it.

It being Ten o'clock, Madam Deputy Speaker, put the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [this day].
	The House divided: Ayes 309, Noes 284.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Bill read the Third time, and passed.

EUROPEAN UNION DOCUMENTS

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No.119(9)(European Standing Committees),

Marketing of Foods Derived from Genetically Modified Maize

That this House takes note of the unnumbered Explanatory Memorandum dated 15th July 2005, submitted by the Food Standards Agency, relating to the Draft Council Decision authorising the placing on the market of foods and food ingredients derived from genetically modified Roundup Ready maize line GA21; and supports the Government's view that products derived from this maize meet the necessary requirements for authorisation under Regulation No. 258/97. [Mr. Alan Campbell.]

Madam Deputy Speaker: I think the Ayes have it.

Hon. Members: No.

Patrick McLoughlin: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This provision was debated yesterday in Committee. If nobody in that Committee objected to it then, why are some Members now objecting to it on the Floor of the House? [Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. [Interruption.] I am responding to the point of order. It is entirely up to the House if it wishes to pass an opinion. I shall take the voices once again.

Hon. Members: No.
	Division deferred till Wednesday 19 October, pursuant to Order [7 November 2000].

PETITIONS
	  
	Isitfair Council Tax Campaign

Desmond Swayne: It is my privilege to present the petition of Mr. Johnson, my constituent from Barton-on-sea, consisting of 210 signatures, on behalf of the Isitfair council tax campaign. The residents of Barton-on-sea are understandably incensed at the exponential increase in council tax over recent years that has taken no cognisance of their ability to pay.
	The petition states:
	The Petitioners request that this Honourable House do vote to replace the council tax with a fair and equitable tax that, without recourse to any supplementary benefit, takes into account ability to pay from disposable income. Such tax to be based on a system that is free from any geographically or politically motivated discrimination, and that clearly identifies the fiscal and managerial responsibilities of all involved parties.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

Bob Russell: I rise to present a public petition on behalf of my constituent Mr. Tony Constable, who is a doughty campaigner on behalf of the Colchester pensioners action group, and who in January of this year presented a petition on the council tax to the Committee on Petitions at the European Parliament in Brussels. His latest attempt on behalf of senior citizens consisted of spending one hour outside the Co-op store in Colchester last week, and he secured signatures at the rate of one every 30 seconds. The petition states:
	The petition of the Isitfair Council Tax protest campaign
	Declares that the year on year, inflation-busting increases in Council Tax are causing hardship to many and take no account of ability to pay; further that the proposed property revaluation and re-banding exercise will make an already flawed system even worse.
	The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons votes to replace Council Tax with a fair and equitable tax that, without recourse to any supplementary benefit, takes into account ability to pay from disposable income. Such tax to be based on a system that is free from any geographical or politically motivated discrimination, and that clearly identifies the fiscal and managerial responsibilities of all involved parties.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

Ministry of Defence Procurement

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.[Mr. Alan Campbell.]

Lindsay Hoyle: I believe that this is an important debate about procurement and about its effects if we do not get it right. I shall touch on many issues, but I start with Royal Ordnance, which is based all over the country, though I am particularly concerned with the Chorley site. Royal Ordnance at Chorley still employs 200 people, so it is an important employer. It produces initiators. It is the only site within the BAE Systems umbrella that can produce initiators, which means that security of supply would be put at risk if the Chorley site were closed.
	I am very concerned that BAE Systems and Royal Ordnance seem to think that there will be an alternative. We know that they have shopped around in Singapore and sought to find out who could supply initiators if they were not produced at Chorley. I assure everyone that we should not put at risk our supply to the armed forces. It is a major risk, particularly in times of crisis and when we are committed all over the world. The one thing that the troops require is ammunition that can be trusted. Our ammunition can be trusted because it is produced thoroughly by RO from start to finish. We should not allow BAE or RO to weasel their way out of commitment to the Chorley site.
	Yes, there has been a problem with production at the Chorley site and, tragically, someone lost their life on that facility. I would not like to think that someone had lost their life in vain. BAE must look at the line again, put in the necessary investment and ensure that it is safe. I do not want it to take the easy option of closing the facility down. We should put the investment in and ensure that the commitment signed with the Government to ensure the supply of ammunition continues. That means using Chorley. We should not let BAE off the hook. BAE would be the first to complain to MPs if the Government were to renege on an order. So when it is the other way round, we should not let BAE renege on its agreement regarding Royal Ordnance.
	Aerospace is another important subject. Much is said and made of the joint strike fighter, but there is a big worry about it. We know that the Americans are still holding back and the international traffic in arms regulations waiver is still in place. The Americans are still not fully committed to letting the technology come through to us. The other problem is that we need to see final assembly of the jets that we are to order and we need to secure those jobs. Some of the highest skills in the country are based in Lancashire. All that could be put at risk because we cannot get the agreement of the Americans. Well, if there is a special relationship out there, it is time that the Prime Minister used it. We should be securing those jobs in Lancashire by getting what we need.
	Another company called CSC Computer Sciences employs many people in Chorley, delivering high-tech services for BAE Systems. There is talk about a new company, Alfred McAlpine Business Systems, and I am worried. A long-established link between BAE and CSC has delivered the systems that ensure that nuclear submarines sail safely. All that could be put at risk and we must think about using untried and untested companies that do not have a background in what we are asking for.

John Smith: I am listening with great interest to the procurement issues that my hon. Friend raises, all of which relate to that excellent company BAE Systems. Does he share my concern that there is a risk that that company may be over-committing itself to work, especially in debt support of fast jetsattack jets in particularin this country, and that that could impact on some of the other businesses to which he refers?

Lindsay Hoyle: Quite rightly my hon. Friend is standing up for the workers at St. Athan, where there is a highly skilled work force and a great background in servicing jets. The MOD must ensure that work goes to that factory as well and that we do not lose this country's skills.
	There is a worry about Alfred McAlpine Business Systems and about the software, and we must not allow anybody to tender for work without a proven track record. That brings me to the subject of the Army uniforms with which the MOD decided they wanted to be supplied.
	A company called Cooneen, Watts and Stone tendered for the contract, and a so-called company in Belgium was meant to be supplying. However, behind all the smoke and mirrors was a state-owned and, no doubt, subsidised factory in China. We have ended up sending work from this country to China, which has meant jobs being lost in Lancashire. A factory in the constituency of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), has closed; that is how bad it has got.
	The Prime Minister was questioned on this matter. I understand that he is briefed, that he does not know everything and that he answers on the basis of what he is told. He was told, Do not worry, this will not only protect jobs in Northern Ireland but increase them. That is not the case; there are fewer jobs now than before the company got the contract. That was another red herring and we were all hoodwinked once more.
	I am worried about my constituents at the Pincroft factory in Adlington, which has a great reputation for bleaching and dyeing and producing these uniforms, which they have done for many years. The camouflage is good enough to be used around the world, but it is not good enough for here. As usual, we have penny-wise and pound-foolish policies. It is meant to be about saving money, but it is not.

Michael Penning: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on procuring the debate this evening. [Interruption.] I am sorry that the Liberal Democrats are laughing, because it is important that our armed forces have the right equipment. If we do not have the necessary supply chains for getting the best possible equipment to our armed forces, jobs will be lost in our constituencies. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not make money available to buy the right equipment for our armed forces personnel, they will buy their own equipment. The Minister will know that all too many members of the armed forces buy equipment because they are not given equipment that is good enough. It is not right that

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Interventions should be brief.

Lindsay Hoyle: The hon. Gentleman is right. He raises a question that is asked by our armed forces. They are worried about their equipment, and we should not allow that to happen. We should ensure that they have the right equipment for the job that we expect them to do. Instead of trying to shave a few pennies off the cost, we should give them the right gear in the first place.
	As my right hon. Friend the Minister can see, I am holding up a camouflage jacket made in China. The problem is not that he can see it, although it is meant to be camouflage; it is that this piece of combat uniform has 19 faults. That may be hard to believe, but it is what we expect our service personnel to put up with
	I shall list some of the jackets faults. The waist channel, front and neck, is 41 cm when it should be 42 cm. The front length is 78.5 cm, and it should be 80 cm. The usable zip length is wrong, and the back length, collar to waist, is not accurate. The distance between the breast pockets and the collar is wrong, and the back measurement is wrong. The front edge and front bottom of the hip pocket are both inaccurately cut. The hip flaps and the front zip pockets are wrong too, and the left storm guard is not fused. Why are our armed forces supposed to put up with that? We all know that the last thing a soldier on active service needs is to get wet.
	It gets worse. The Pincroft factory in Adlington is now having to make the one-off, special garments, that cannot be made in China. However, it was told that the infra-red capability of its productsvital for camouflage purposesdid not meet Ministry of Defence standards. If the factory in my constituency was to blame for the errors, I would be the first to say that it was not good enough to do the job, but eventually it turned out that the Ministry had not been applying the right test. That means that the infra-red capability produced in Chorley was rightas the factory always insisted that it was, in the face of the Ministry's claims to the contrary.
	The problem was that the Ministry had used a back plate for the tests that was black instead of white. Given that that was the case, and that the same test was applied to the uniforms produced in China, does that mean that all the Chinese uniforms are wrong, and that they might put our troops at risk? That is the question, and it is a very serious matter.Was the wrong test applied to the Chinese-made uniforms, or were they not tested at all? After all, irrespective of the deficiencies in the uniforms' infra-red capability, the jacket that I have demonstrated to the House still has 19 faults of other kinds.
	What comes next? I can tell the House that soldiers are telephoning the Pincroft factory and asking for special garments to be made for them. They claim that the dye in the uniforms provided has a tendency to get washed out. That is very serious, but how have we allowed the problem to arise? What real savings have been made? I do not think that there any, but I know that we have got ourselves in a mess.

David Crausby: Is it not ironic that the Americans refused to give us the ITAR waiver in order to protect American jobs at the same time as we were prepared to give away good Lancashire jobs to China?

Lindsay Hoyle: Absolutely. It is daft. We are giving jobs to China yet Peter Mandelson the commissioner is asking why we are allowing all these textiles in from China and saying that we have to put some barriers up and that we are going to reduce the amount coming in from China next year. At the same time, we are putting contracts for the making of uniforms out there. I agree with my hon. Friend.
	The worry is that we are getting uniforms with faults on them. There are worries about the safety of our soldiers. Why are we doing it? Why are we putting soldiers at risk? Why do we not stop the order now and have a full investigation? Let us put the jobs where they belongwhere the taxpayer expects; back in this country supporting the textile workers in Lancashire. Let us have enough of this nonsense. Let us do something about it. Let us have an end to the Chinese market and the Chinese takeaway in this country.

Adam Ingram: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) on securing the debate and providing me with the opportunity to speak on these important issues. My hon. Friend has raised four issuesthe future of supply for initiators at BAE systems Chorley, the cut and sewn contract, the joint strikefighter programme and the issue of Alfred McAlpine business systems. I will try to respond to them in the time available.
	It is critical that our armed forces receive the equipment that they need to do the jobs that we ask of them. Our service personnel are among the best equipped in the world and the measures and programmes that the Government have put in place will ensure that they remain so in future. I do not have time to go into every procurement in which we are currently engaged, but it is exceptional compared with previous yearsthe largest sustained shipbuilding programme for a generation, massive investment in the Air Force and massive investment in land systems. But getting the procurement process right is of course fundamental, not only to the delivery of enhanced military capability on time but to securing best value for the taxpayer. That is why we are devoting so much effort to ensuring that Smart procurement works. We recognise that there is more to do in this respect, but we are nevertheless confident that we are making good progress. We are confident, too, that the defence industrial strategy, which I will touch on later, will help industry understand our requirements better when it is launched later this year.
	My hon. Friend's concern is the future of the BAE Systems Land Systems site at Chorley in his constituency. I am aware of the present difficulties at this site, following an industrial accident in March this year, which tragically resulted in the death of a production worker. Chorley's main output are initiators, or fuses, for various types of munitions. Since the accident, production at Chorley has been suspended pending a Health and Safety Executive investigation.
	Clearly, the Health and Safety Executive's report will have implications for future operations at the site. This is, however, first and foremost a matter for the company. It is BAE Systems' responsibility to maintain the supply of initiators to the MOD in the interim, and we are confident in its ability to do so. It is meeting that requirement at present.

Lindsay Hoyle: It is fair to say that a mixture of explosives has to be used up because it is too volatile to be moved. So the company will have to run down what is on site. The agreement was that the material would be supplied from this country and from within BAE Systems sites, and that is what the MOD is trying to get out of.

Adam Ingram: I was coming on to that. Obviously, the MOD's interest is in securing long-term security of supply. My hon. Friend is absolutely right on that. It may be helpful if I set out our policy in this area.
	The significance of the munitions strategic supply position was underlined when the framework partnering agreementthe FPAwas signed in December 1999 between the MOD and RO Defence, which now trades as BAE Systems Land Systems. The FPA covers the majority of the MOD general munitions range, including initiators, and is due to expire in March 2010.
	The FPA provided a significant step toward achieving a sustainable UK source for general munitions supply and is projected to exceed the financial targets envisaged. Obviously, we are looking to build on that success. Because of that success, we have also recently underpinned our partnership with BAE Systems in the munitions field, through the signing of a new set of partnering principles. That provides a demonstration of commitment to a long-term objective for munitions provision.
	At the same time, we are examining the supply of munitions provision beyond 2010 through project MASSor munitions acquisition, the supply solution. The general munitions position will form one element of the wider defence industrial strategy. The DIS is a logical development of the defence industrial policy, which we set out in 2002, and is aimed at ensuring that the capability requirements of the armed forces can be met now and in the future. Conclusions on the DIS will be reached by the end of this calendar year. Industry continues to be involved in that work and, of course, the trade unions are also heavily engaged in the discussions.
	I have given the background to the situation and I hope that it serves to indicate the seriousness with which the Government view strategic defence industrial issues in general, and munitions supply issues in particular. We are conscious of the need for security of supply in munitions, and we also recognise that we need to get to grips with the range of systems and equipment delivered by British industry. We need to examine what is achievable in terms of the retention of key industries. That will take time. We will need to talk to industry and it will not be an easy process. We will wait and see how that plays out, but the process is consistent with the views expressed by my hon. Friend.
	My hon. Friend referred to the possible closure of the Chorley site, and we are aware that the company is considering options for various parts of its business. My officials have engaged with the company on that, to ensure that its plans are compatible with our needs. It is a matter for the company, but it has to ensure that it meets the agreement laid down in 1999 and the new set of partnering principles. My hon. Friend will recognise that I cannot comment on those discussions in this forum, nor speculate on future outcomes, not least because they are fundamentally commercial matters for the company itself.
	My hon. Friend also raised the question of the cut and sewn contract. He knows very well the background to the contract award. Indeed, from what he said tonight, he obviously has a detailed knowledge of it. He correctly pointed out the extensive correspondence and communication between the previous Secretary of State and me, including meetings with the trade unions, hon. Members and representatives of industry to hear their concerns. As a result, we reviewed the cut and sewn garments contract earlier this year. We examined the process used for the procurement, the outcome of tender evaluation and the decision taken. We also revisited the capability of the winning contractor, Cooneen, Watts and Stone. At the end of that exhaustive process, we concluded that there was no reason to alter the original decision. I want to make it clearas we have done on previous occasionsthat the contract was let after a fair and open competition against published criteria. Cooneen, Watts and Stone was the clear winner against those criteria.
	Under the five-year contract, Cooneen, Watts and Stone will supply the MOD with up to 2 million individual items of clothing a year. The contract will gradually replace some 60 individual contracts for clothing supply and will save the taxpayer 23 million over the contract life, by comparison to previous arrangements. Subcontract opportunities exist for previous suppliers to present themselves competitively to the prime contractor over the life of the five-year contract.
	Having examined the matter, I genuinely believe that the contract is an excellent example of how the MOD is making procurement smarter and better. We have taken away a complicated supply chain and put in place a straightforward contract under which subcontractors can bid, and have made a significant 23 million saving. We are determined that our armed forces should have the best clothing appropriate for the extreme environments in which they may be asked to serve and the demanding nature of the tasks they undertake.
	Again, having examined the issue, we are confident that Cooneen, Watts and Stone can meet those demands, while providing good value for money to the taxpayer. That confidence has been recently reinforced by the results of the first annual contract review. Savings in excess of 1 million have been made to date, and those savings are in addition to the 23 million in savings already secured by comparison with previous arrangements. Cost and quality targets are being achieved and exceeded. The bulk fabric was tested by a UK accredited laboratory ahead of the main production run and conformed to the required specification. Finished garments have also been randomly tested by a UK accredited laboratory.
	Clearly, I will take on board the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley. If he had cared to write to us before the debate, we could have had answers for the debate this evening. I have no problem about saying that the equipment is the best in the world. I could hardly see the jacket against the green Benchesthat shows how good the camouflage isbut I take the point that, if serious imperfections have been brought to his attention, I am duty bound to investigate them.
	We have received no complaints from units. As I have said before at the Dispatch Box, I am fortunate that I am one of those people who probably meet more serving members of the armed forces than any other hon. Member, given the way I get round our estate and meet our people. The issue has never been raised with me, and the members of the armed forces do not hold back: they tell me what they think, and they have not told me about this. That does not mean that there is no problem, but it has not been brought to my attention until this evening.
	I am also aware of my hon. Friend's concerns about the overseas element of the contract. As I have said before in the House, the idea that there was a sole British manufacturer seeking to place all its output in the UK sector is simply wrong. Countries that appeared on the list of bidding companies included Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Sri Lanka, Dubai, as well as China. UK companies are free to trade with Chinese companies. I do not know whether he is arguing for an embargo on trade with China.

Lindsay Hoyle: Of course, there is a worry about Chinathe Chinese are being given intelligence about the design of the camouflage because they are printing itbut the bigger question is that a state factory is being used and subsidies are being applied so that it can win work. My worry is that the competition is not fair.

Adam Ingram: I mentioned other countriesUkraine, Bulgaria, Romania and Sri Lanka. We check out the quality of the factories that supply the camouflage, and we ensure that it meets high standards. The idea that China is somehow the sweatshop of the world is not accurate in terms of the quality of the work that it does and the way in which its economy is growing dramatically. My hon. Friend may think that we should simply cease trading with China; I do not think that is realistic. All companies in the UK are free to trade with Chinese companies. Moreover, the UK is not alone in sourcing its military clothing from abroad. Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, to name but four of them, all procure clothing made in other countries. However, as I say, I will take on board the points that have been made about quality and investigate them further.
	Turning to the joint combat aircraft, I am pleased to say that the joint strike fighter programme is progressing to plan, and we are confident that the joint strike fighter will meet the UK's joint combat aircraft requirements. The new aircraft will be a sophisticated, stealthy and multi-role aircraft that will provide UK forces with a significant step up in military capability. When embarked upon our new aircraft carriers, the JCA will be the key element of a more versatile and capable carrier force. That represents a significant opportunity for UK defence companies and the UK aerospace industry. Clearly, there are still issues to resolve in respect of the ITAR waiver. Intensive lobbying goes on, and we make the point time and againwe will not cease to do sothat there are huge opportunities for British industry on the back of the contract.
	The final point that my hon. Friend made related to Alfred McAlpine Business Systems. He is correct to say that that company does not currently deliver IT systems for submarines. Any decision to change suppliers would be a matter for the prime contractor, BAE Systems submarines. The management of subcontractors is principally the responsibility of the prime contractor, who is selected on the basis of technical competence and ability to manage the supply chain in accordance with the MOD requirements of governance and probity.
	I am aware that Alfred McAlpine Business Systems is currently undergoing security accreditation checks to enable it operate as a subcontractor on MOD contracts. It would be inappropriate therefore to comment further on that point, other than to say that the more British-based companies we can encourage into the supply chain, the better. We should be encouraging more start-up companies, growth companies and competition, but the key issue is that they must undertake robust accreditation processes, satisfy the governance aspects of that approach and show probity in going about their business.

Lindsay Hoyle: My hon. Friend seems to be saying that the more we can encourage companies to put tenders in and the more we have supplying us, the better. That flies in the face of what we did on uniforms, where we wanted to reduce the number of suppliers.

Adam Ingram: No, we did not want to reduce the number of suppliers. We wanted to change the way in which the supply chain was managed. The number of suppliers, depending on how many subcontractors tender, is a matter for the prime contractor. We do not regulate the supply chain in that sense.
	The motion having been made after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
	Adjourned accordingly at 10.51 pm.

MR SPEAKER'S RULING(QUOTING SAME DAY SPEECHES)

The following Private Ruling given by Mr. Speaker is published in accordance with Mr. Speaker's statement of 5 November 1981.[Official Report, c. 113.]
	From Monday 17 October, a Hansard record of proceedings will be available on the House of Commons website on the same day. In the normal course of events, the text of the Official Report for the early part of a debate lasting a full day will be available on the website while the debate is still going on.
	Erskine May, Parliamentary Practice, 23rd edition, page 260, records:
	It is not in order for a Member to obtain or quote during a current sitting the record made for the Official Report of the remarks of any other Member.
	I have tried to establish the origins of the rule, which is based on rulings by my predecessors. The main justification appears to be that it would be wrong to argue about what was said until an authoritative published text was available. There is no rule, for example, that a Member's remarks on the first day of a two-day debate should not be quoted on a subsequent day.
	In the light of the availability to Members of an authoritative text of speeches made on the same day, I now rule that the current practice set out in May should be disregarded where a Member is quoting from published material remarks made in the House on the same day.
	The practice that, apart from the Speaker, only the Member concerned has a right to see the text of their speech before publication will not be affected.